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UNI Commerce UFCW supermarket strike page
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Wal-martize wages
and employment conditions at any cost: The three US supermarket giants have lost much more than expected during the two months of strike and lockout. On Friday (5 December), Albertsons reported that it had lost 132 million USD in sales already during the first nineteen days of strike, between 11 and 30 October. If the same trend has continued, as it probably would, the company would have lost well over half a billion dollars until today. This could even be much more, taking the Thanksgiving and Christmas sales seasons into account. The company is the smallest of the three chains in the Southern California region, with 259 stores affected. Altogether, 852 stores are involved, through strike or through lockout. When Safeway and Kroger are added, sales losses are probably up to billions of dollars. Commenting on Albertsons' figures in Los Angeles Times, UFCW Local 770 President Rick Icaza said that they show how "utterly senseless" the strike is: "If Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons had been willing to spend that same amount of money, in combination with the unions' effort to modify the plan to contain health-care inflation, we would almost certainly have avoided a strike." The US supermarket strike and lockout is expensive also for the shareholders. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune yesterday (6 December), Albertsons earnings per share fell 47 percent for its fiscal third quarter, which included the first 19 days of the strike and lockout. Net income for the quarter through 30 October was 92 million USD, or 25 cents a share, compared with net income of 188 million USD, or 47 cents a share, a year earlier. Safeway and Kroger have not yet disclosed their losses.
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