Commerce
Home Page

UFCW

Send support message to UFCW and its members who fight for healthcare and decent wages

U.S. supermarket strike continues:
Employers stick to their hard line to deny affordable health care

The U.S. supermarket strike for affordable health care continues. This week will mark the completion of the third month of worker struggle, spearheaded by UNI Commerce affiliate UFCW and close to 70,000 of its members. Southern California is the battleground, where much of the future living conditions of American workers will be decided.

Earlier this week, negotiations to find a solution were once again discontinued. The employers maintain a hard line and have not responded positively to UFCW's preparedness to compromise. There is a major risk that the large unionized supermarket chains in the United States succeed in their efforts to cut employment conditions to Wal-Mart levels.

UFCW and its members are in the forefront of a fight which will have broad repercussions. If the American retail workers and their families are relegated by their employers to the growing group of the working poor, this will be felt far beyond the industry or even the country itself.

It should be clear for all that what happens with employment conditions in American commerce, which is the largest employer in world's largest consumer economy, will be felt also in other countries and by other trade unions. Instead of a Wal-Mart, the reference point may be an expansive hard discounter engaged in social dumping. Still, unless unions succeed in organising and in defending collective agreement benefits, there will be a heavy bill to pay for the workers.