Article 43
American Solidarity
American Solidarity - Time To Stand Up
Friday, March 24, 2023
Michigan Repeals Right-To-Work Law
The union membership rate in the U.S. hit a new low in 2022 despite a wave of organizing efforts across the country, according to Labor Department data… The percentage of workers who were members of a union dropped to 10.1 percent, down from 10.3 percent. While the number of union workers increased by 273,000 last year, that only accounted for a small fraction of the 5.3 million jobs added
- Union membership drops to new low despite organizing wave
“If workers are more insecure, that’s very ‘healthy’ for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won’t ask for wages, they won’t go on strike, they won’t call for benefits; they’ll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that’s optimal for corporations’ economic health.”
- Noam Chomsky
Unions can be a source of stability as well as class conflict. The recent labor renaissance could help to reverse some worrying long-term trends in the American economy, while also still benefiting the businesses from which workers are extracting gains.
- Union Rise, 2019
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Michigan becomes first state in decades to repeal ‘right-to-work’ law following Whitmer’s approval
By Jared Gans
The Hill
March 24, 2023
Michigan became the first state in decades to repeal its “right-to-work” law when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed legislation on Friday to rescind it.
The governor’s office said in a RELEASE that Whitmer signed a package of bills that will protect workers’ safety and help them push for better wages and working conditions.
“Today, we are coming together to restore workers rights, protect Michiganders on the job, and grow Michigan’s middle class,” Whitmer said in the statement. “Michigan workers are the most talented and hard-working in the world and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”
The repeal of the law is a major victory for labor unions in the state amid RECORD LOW union membership nationwide.
“Right-to-work” laws allow employees at unionized workplaces to opt out of joining a union and or paying dues.
Proponents of these types of laws argue that they allow workers to decide for themselves whether to join a union. Critics contend that they harm employees’ pay, benefits and working conditions through weakening the union because the workers who don’t join are officially represented by the union, even if they are not members.
Repealing the law was among Michigan Democrats’ top priorities after the November midterm elections in which the party won control of both houses of the state legislature with a Democratic governor in office for the first time in four decades.
The law was first implemented in 2012 when Republicans had control of both houses and former GOP Gov. Rick Snyder was in office.
Whitmer also signed a prevailing wage law into effect that requires contractors who are working on state projects to pay union-level wages. Republicans had repealed this law in 2018.
State Sen. Darren Camilleri (D), who sponsored the bill to overturn the right-to-workӔ law, said in the release that Michigans action is the first time in almost 60 years that a state has overturned such a law.
Indiana was the most recent state to repeal a “right-to-work” law in 1965. Republicans restored the law in 2012.
“We were so proud to get this to the governor’s desk, and even prouder to see it signed into law - this is tangible proof that the Republican attack on organized labor has failed,” Camilleri said. “WeҒre entering a new chapter in Michigan.”
The state House and Senate both approved the repeal along party lines on their way to sending the bill to Whitmer’s desk.
State Rep. Matt Hall, the House Republican leader, said Whitmer’s signature on the bill will cause businesses to seek other states that are more competitive than Michigan.
The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that 26 other states and Guam have right-to-work laws in place.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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LA Teachers And Service Workers Unite
Kudos to the teachers who joined the picket line in solidarity.
Let’s not forget the screwing our rulers did to the railroad workers LAST MONTH:
After a 3-year saga of stalled contract negotiations between the country’s freight rail carriers and the 12 unions representing over 100,000 railroad workers, “pro-union” President Biden and Congress last week “averted a national rail shutdown” by overriding the democratic will of rail workers and forcing a contract down their throats.
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Demonstrations, protests mark first day of LA school strike
By Sequoia Carrillo
NPR
March 21, 2023
Hundreds of thousands of students were out of school today in Los Angeles as the country’s second largest district ground to a halt. The union representing bus drivers, maintenance workers and other support staff began a three-day walkout, and THE UNION REPRESENTING THE CITY’S TEACHERS JOINED THE STRIKE IN SOLIDARITY
The protests began early as drivers and supporters gathered before dawn at the Van Nuys school bus depot.
“I love that everybody came out, even in the rain, to support this,” said Maria Betancourt, a bus driver. “We need everybody to come out.”
The strike comes after more than a year of negotiations with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and its superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, over pay and health benefits.
“We understand the plight, the frustration and the realities faced by our workforce members,” Carvalho said Monday evening. “We’re willing to work with them, but the way we find a solution is by having a partner at the table to actually negotiate possible results.”
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 represents traditional service employees like custodians and cafeteria workers, along with more specialized positions such as special education assistants. Despite the critical roles these workers play in the operation of a school, the union says the average salary of its members in the district is $25,000 per year, with many of these employees working part time.
The SEIU is demanding a 30% increase in base salary over four years. The district administration has agreed to a 23% raise over a five year period, along with bonuses, but the union has not responded to the past three offers.
Many of its members feel a lack of respect from the district’s leadership. “I don’t think they want to listen to us ... to our needs,” said Betancourt.
A few hours later, the union’s Executive Director Max Arias, echoed those concerns at a demonstration outside Robert F Kennedy Community School in Koreatown. “If LAUSD truly values and is serious about reaching an agreement,” he said, “they must show workers the respect they deserve.”
Yolanda Mimes Reed, a special education assistant who attended the rally in Koreatown, says she works four jobs in order to afford to live in Los Angeles. “I work for in-home support services, I do hair, and I also have an online boutique,” she said.
To her, the pay increase in the union’s demands would make a huge difference. “It means being out of below the poverty line. And it means letting go of one of those jobs so I don’t have to be working all the time. I can spend some time with my family.”
The majority of LAUSD’s 420,000 students are from families who live at or below the poverty line, and depend on schools for far more than just classroom instruction. District officials are working with the city and local volunteers to provide students with breakfasts and lunches, as well as to help families with child care for working parents during the planned three-day walkout.
This is the second strike in the school district in four years. In 2019, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, or UTLA, WENT ON STRIKE for six days before reaching an agreement. The union says it is standing in solidarity with SEIU this week, while also continuing its own contract negotiations with the district.
Among the teachers’ demands is a similar wage increase and a cap on class sizes. So far, the district has not given much - citing concerns over its finances.
Carvalho, the former Miami-Dade superintendent who came to Los Angeles 13 months ago, says the district, with its $14.8 billion operating budget - is existing in a financial bubble right now. Enrollment is declining, it’s hard to keep teachers’ positions filled, and in a few years the padding of COVID relief money will be rolled back.
Carvalho says he’s fighting to protect the district’s financial security. Union leaders say they’re protecting their members who, in many cases, struggle to make ends meet despite working jobs that clearly keep LAUSD running.
And, stuck in the middle are the students and parents who’ll be scrambling today.
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Los Angeles school strike ends, but a deal hasn’t been announced
Los Angeles Unified School District support staffers earn, on average, about $25,000 a year, barely enough to get by in one of the most expensive cities in America.
By The Associated Press
March 24, 2023
A THREE-DAY STRIKE by workers in the Los Angeles Unified School District ended Thursday, but it wasn’t immediately clear if any progress was made in negotiations for higher pay for teachers aides, bus drivers, custodians and other support staff in the nation’s second-largest school system.
TEACHERS JOINED THE PICKET LINES in solidarity, SHUTTING DOWN INSTRUCTION for the district’s half-million students during the walkout by members of Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 30,000 of the lowest-paid school workers. Support staffers earn, on average, about $25,000 a year in Los Angeles, barely enough to get by in one of the most expensive cities in America.
Mayor Karen Bass stepped in as mediator Wednesday after district Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho accused the union of refusing to negotiate.
Max Arias, executive director of SEIU Local 99, said the union was grateful that Bass was helping “find a path out of our current impasse.” There was no indication Thursday how the arbitration was going.
“Education workers have always been eager to negotiate as long as we are treated with respect and bargained with fairly, and with the mayor’s leadership we believe that is possible,” Arias said.
Carvalho has called the school district’s offer “historic.” It includes a cumulative 23% raise, starting with 2% retroactive as of the 2020-21 school year and ending with 5% in 2024-25. The package would also give a one-time 3% bonus to those who have been on the job more than a year. It would also add more full-time positions and expand health care benefits.
Sofia Munoz, a special education teacher’s assistant, said she hoped the labor action sent a message to Carvalho.
“Were hoping just to bring awareness and let the superintendent know that we’re here to make a difference,” Munoz said Thursday at a rally marking the strikeҒs final day.
The school district confirmed in a statement Wednesday that school officials have been in talks with union leaders with help from the mayor.
“We continue to do everything possible to reach an agreement that honors the hard work of our employees, corrects historical inequities, maintains the financial stability of the district and brings students back to the classroom,” the statement said.
The union said employees, including special education assistants, cafeteria workers and gardeners, would return to work on Friday.
The strike concluded after putting a spotlight on the issue of NOTORIOUSLY UNDERPAID WORKERS who serve as the backbone of schools across the country.
SEIU Local 99 says many of its members live in poverty because of low pay or limited work hours while struggling with inflation and the high cost of housing. The union is seeking a 30% raise for workers.
While the Los Angeles Unified School District is unique because of its size, the walkout could have lessons for other systems in the state, said Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Board Association.
“LAUSD could be the canary in the coalmine when you look at the potential for difficult labor negotiations in school districts across California,” he said.
Districts are coping with staff shortages and other challenges exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, while working to address other longstanding issues including student performance that predated the pandemic, according to Flint. In addition, emergency pandemic funding from the state was set to expire next year, which will stretch district finances even thinner after decades of underfunding, he said.
“It’s natural that employees want to better compensated for their important work,” Flint said. “There is a lot of tension between what districts want to do and what they have the capacity to do.”
Leaders of United Teachers of Los Angeles, which represents 35,000 educators, counselors and other staff, pledged solidarity with the strikers.
Experts say it is unusual for different unions in the same school district to band together but the unified labor action in Los Angeles could mark an inflection point.
Luz Varela, a teacher’s aide, said workers felt like they had to strike.
“I feel sad that we have to go through this because were missing our kids, but weҒre doing this for our kids,” she said. “I feel that we deserve a little bit more. Its not all about the money. This is about our future for our kids.”
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Thursday, September 15, 2022
Unions Return
Public approval of unions hits highest point since 1965 ... again
By Laura Clawson
Daily Kos
September 5, 2022
Public support for unions is at its HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE 1965, according to Gallup’s annual pre-Labor Day survey. And if that headline sounds familiar, it’s because LAST YEAR Gallup also found the highest public support for unions since 1965.
In 2021, 68% of people surveyed said they approved of labor unions. In 2022, 71% said they approved. That’s a “statistically similar” number, as Gallup puts it, but before the pandemic, the number was 64%. Thats part of an ongoing trend in the right direction: “Support for labor unions was highest in the 1950s, when three in four Americans said they approved, Gallup notes. “Support only DIPPED BELOW THE 50% MARK ONCE IN 209, but has improved in the 13 years since and now sits at a level last seen nearly 60 years ago.”
Recent years have seen a series of teacher uprisings against education budget cuts and low wages - TEACHERS FACE A SIGNIFICANT PAY PENALTY in comparison with other equivalently educated workers - and, this year, a remarkable string of union wins at Starbucks along with one enormous win at Amazon. The COVID-19 PANDEMIC also spurred many workers to reconsider their relationships with their work and their employers, as workers dubbed “essential” early in the pandemic soon saw themselves treated as disposable and workers faced the competing pressures of care work, health and safety, and the demands of their employers.
Over the past decade-plus, unions have also led fights for POLICIES like an increased minimum wage and paid leave - extremely successful initiatives at the state level, even if those policies remain stalled at the federal level - that benefit all workers, not just union members. Even if you don’t pay attention to the data showing that UNIONS REDUCE ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, the old right-wing attacks on unions as purely self-interested very obviously don’t hold water.
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Thursday, June 02, 2022
Corinthian Fifteen
I Went on Strike to Cancel My Student Debt and Won. Every Debtor Deserves the Same.
Former students Corinthian Colleges just won the largest student debt cancelation in Education Department history. Now its time for Biden to cancel debt for everyone.
By Ann Bowers
In These Times
June 2, 2022
This week, former students of Corinthian Colleges - a predatory for-profit school that once boasted more than 100 campuses across the country - received news that their student loans will be canceled. In an ANNOUNCEMENT, a Department of Education (DOE) press release called the move “the largest single loan discharge the Department has made in history.” As a former student of Everest College, which is a branch of Corinthian, I am overjoyed that everyone who attended the scam school will finally be made whole.
The action, announced on June 2, will impact 560,000 former Corinthian students and $5.8 in total student debt will be CANCELLED. This amounts to a stunning victory for debtors who took collective action to win relief.
But I want to set the record straight. This victory is not the result of the Biden administrations good will. It is the outcome of a fierce organizing campaign by debtors that has been going on for almost eight years. I should know. I was part of a group of former students that launched a 7‑year long student debt strike to win loan cancellation from the federal government.
Now, as President Biden considers cancelling student loan debt more broadly, the outcome for former Corinthian students should send a clear message that the only way to resolve the issue of pernicious student loan debt is to cancel it for everybody and to do so automatically, without making borrowers individually apply.
My involvement started back in 2014 when I read an article that revealed my school was suspected of lying to and defrauding borrowers, many of whom were from LOW-INCOME FAMILIES. I was outraged to discover that CORINTHIAN HAD BEEN UNDER INVESTIGATION by the U.S. Senate since at least 2010 for breaking the law - all while continuing to RECEIVE BILLIONS of dollars per year in government funding. Investigators found that Corinthian lied to students about job placement rates, ENROLLED PEOPLE WHO WERE NOT PREPARED for college-level work and offered a sub-par education. The college also PROVIDED FALSIFIED PLACEMENT information to accrediting agencies in order to keep federal money flowing. Some of the evidence against Corinthian was compiled by then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who SUED THE SCHOOL in 2013 for false advertising.
Furious and determined to fight back, I turned to social media and found that hundreds of former students of my school were gathering online to address the dilemma that we had found ourselves in: huge debts and worthless degrees.
Organizers from the Debt Collective, a union for debtors, had also heard about the plight of Corinthian borrowers and found our group on Facebook. They proposed that everyone who had attended the school join together to pressure the government to cancel our debts. There were few other choices: student debts cannot be erased in bankruptcy except in a few extreme circumstances. Turning our individual burdens into a collective demand was our only option.
In the winter of 2015, a group of former students met in person to plan the campaign. We were all in a similar situation. None of us had been able to find the high-paying jobs that Corinthian had promised, and none of us could afford to pay back the astronomical sums that we owed. We turned our inability to repay into a rallying cry and launched a student debt strike the first in U.S. history ח to demand the cancellation of our loans. We called ourselves the CORINTHIAN FIFTEEN.
The law was on our side. We relied on an obscure legal mechanism called Borrower Defense to Repayment that required the government to cancel the debts of defrauded students. Since the DOE did not even have an application available to those who wanted to apply for relief, we worked with lawyers to design a form and then made it available on the Debt Collectives website. By the spring of 2015, applications from former for-profit college students ROLLED IN by the thousands.
Public opinion was also on our side. Our campaign went viral. Dozens of news outlets covered the story of the scammed borrowers who were taking on the Obama administration in March 2015. Strikers MET IN WASHINGTON D.C. with officials from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education and the Treasury Department. We shared our experiences of being lied to and defrauded by Corinthian and delivered hundreds of applications for loan relief into the hands of Ted Mitchell, the Undersecretary of Education under President Obama.
Our campaign won the support of major media organizations like the NEW YORK TIMES editorial board and politicians like Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D‑Mass.) and HILLARY CLINTON. As more former for-profit college students realized they had been scammed, our numbers grew. We were joined by students who had attended other predatory schools such as ITT Technical Institutes. Our group of 15 strikers soon GREW TO 100. Thanks to the Debt Collective, we met with lawyers who helped us understand the consequences of not paying our debts. We knew that defaulted debtors could face wage garnishment and tax offsets. Older borrowers might have their social security benefits garnished. But we were ready for those consequences. Most of us could not afford to pay anyway and were already in default, so the strike was a way to politicize our inability to pay. We stood together for everyone in our situation across the country.
Unfortunately, the Department of Education dragged its feet. Officials claimed they cared about us and wanted to help, but rather than just canceling debts that were shattering lives and ruining futures, they SET UP A SERIES OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSES and claimed they needed to study the issue. Little by little, a few former students who filled out the correct forms and checked the right boxes GOT THEIR LOANS RELIEVED. But hundreds of thousands of others waited in anguish.
I was one of the lucky ones. Finally, in 2017, I received an email from the DOE that said my loans were being canceled. My joy was tempered by the fact that thousands of others were still in debt. The news got even worse when President Donald Trump came into office. His Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, HALTED THE RELIEF PROCESS that had begun slowly under Obama.
But the fight is far from over, and the stakes are higher than ever.
Back in 2010, when I enrolled at Corinthian, I didnt know there was such a thing as for-profit education. I assumed that if the government was funding a college, it must be offering a quality education. My experience organizing a debt strike and talking to borrowers who attended colleges of all kinds has taught me that the problem is larger than scam schools. The for-profit college industry is part of a larger system of higher education that often promises the world while failing to deliver for students like me who don’t come from wealthy backgrounds.
Just like former Corinthian students won by turning our individual struggles into a collective demand, I believe we can win even more if student debtors from colleges of all kinds fight back together. We can demand a more fair and just higher education system and an end to the for-profit schools that prey on low-income students.
The change we seek can start with the flick of the president’s pen. Rather than hand-wringing over means-testing and debt caps, BIDEN CAN CANCEL ALL FEDERAL STUDENT LOANS VIA EXECUTIVE ORDER. And Congress can pass a bill that makes public higher education free. These transformations are within our grasp. The Corinthian Fifteen put the issue of student debt on the national map. This weeks win for Corinthian borrowers should be extended to everyone - because no one should have to go into debt to follow their dreams.
About the author
Ann Bowers is an activist and organizer with the Debt Collective.
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Monday, April 25, 2022
Kudos Krogers and Albertsons
“It’s now clear that the Walmart model of poverty wages and part-time jobs doesn’t work.”
- Daniel Flaming, president, Los Angeles Economic Policy Roundtable
A Watershed for 47,000 SoCal Grocery Workers: The Biggest Raise in Decades
By Bobbi Murray
Capital Main
April 20, 2022
After teetering for weeks at the edge of a strike, Kroger and Albertsons employees approve a new union contract.
For two years as the pandemic consumed day-to-day life, supermarket workers literally risked their lives to keep shelves stocked and customers fed. Deemed “essential,” they nevertheless retained their low status as they took on more responsibilities. Workers were wiping down shelves, products and shopping carts, not to mention handling testy customers who could occasionally get physical about mask-wearing requirements.
Grocery workers had teetered for weeks at the edge of a strike that could have seen picket lines at local Ralphs, Vons, Albertsons, Pavilions, Stater Bros., Gelsons Markets and Super A Foods stores from the southern border up through California’s Central Valley. After a tentative deal was reached April 4, an agreement ratified on April 14 averted that strike in a major way.
The raises included in the new agreement are some of the most significant for supermarket workers in years - and move California supermarket workers away from the Walmart model: low pay, split shifts and uncertain hours that make it impossible to plan schedules or budgets.
Daniel Flaming, president of the Los Angeles Economic Policy Roundtable, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization, said the new agreement “changes the landscape for all retail workers around the country. Its now clear that the Walmart model of poverty wages and part-time jobs doesn’t work as a way to provide jobs for working people in America.
Had California workers gone on strike, it would have cost grocery chains hundreds of millions of dollars, said Peter Dreier, professor of politics and urban and environmental policy at Occidental College. “They weren’t prepared for that kind of loss. It was pretty clear that public opinion was on the side of the workers.”
Dreier, along with Flaming, is an author of the January report “Hungry at the Table,” which surveyed more than 10,000 Kroger grocery workers and describes working conditions in 20 counties across Washington state, Wyoming, Colorado and much of California.
They see the new contract as a seismic shift in the grocery industry landscape.
The THREE YEAR CONTRACT between the United Food and Commercial Workers union and Ralph’s and Albertsons/Vons/Pavilions (along with Stater Bros., Gelson’s Markets and Super A Foods) includes a $4.25/hr. increase for most workers - and some will see higher pay raises. (Disclosure: UFCW is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)
Significantly, the contract increases the minimum weekly hours of work for eligible part-time employees a policy that could mean take-home pay increases of as much as $3,000 per year for some employees, a union news release says
“We are pleased that this agreement allows us to put more money in our associates’ paychecks and secures healthcare and pension plans,” Robert Branton, vice president of operations at Ralphs, said in a statement.
For two years as the pandemic consumed day-to-day life, supermarket workers literally risked their lives to keep shelves stocked and customers fed. Deemed essential,Ӕ they nevertheless retained their low status as they took on more responsibilities. Workers were wiping down shelves, products and shopping carts, not to mention handling testy customers who could occasionally get physical about mask-wearing requirements.
Grocery workers had teetered for weeks at the edge of a strike that could have seen picket lines at local Ralphs, Vons, Albertsons, Pavilions, Stater Bros., Gelsons Markets and Super A Foods stores from the southern border up through CaliforniaҒs Central Valley. After a tentative deal was reached April 4, an agreement ratified on April 14 averted that strike in a major way.
ItӒs now clear that the Walmart model of poverty wages and part-time jobs doesnt work.Ҕ
~ Daniel Flaming, president, Los Angeles Economic Policy Roundtable
The raises included in the new agreement are some of the most significant for supermarket workers in years and move California supermarket workers away from the Walmart model: low pay, split shifts and uncertain hours that make it impossible to plan schedules or budgets.
Daniel Flaming, president of the Los Angeles Economic Policy Roundtable, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization, said the new agreement דchanges the landscape for all retail workers around the country. Its now clear that the Walmart model of poverty wages and part-time jobs doesnҒt work as a way to provide jobs for working people in America.
Had California workers gone on strike, it would have cost grocery chains hundreds of millions of dollars, said Peter Dreier, professor of politics and urban and environmental policy at Occidental College. ԓThey werent prepared for that kind of loss. It was pretty clear that public opinion was on the side of the workers.Ҕ
Dreier, along with Flaming, is an author of the January report Hungry at the Table,Ӕ which surveyed more than 10,000 Kroger grocery workers and describes working conditions in 20 counties across Washington state, Wyoming, Colorado and much of California.
They see the new contract as a seismic shift in the grocery industry landscape.
The three-year contract between the United Food and Commercial Workers union and Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons/Pavilions (along with Stater Bros., Gelsons Markets and Super A Foods) includes a $4.25/hr. increase for most workers - and some will see higher pay raises. (Disclosure: UFCW is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)
Significantly, the contract increases the minimum weekly hours of work for eligible part-time employees a policy that could mean take-home pay increases of as much as $3,000 per year for some employees, a union news release says.
“We are pleased that this agreement allows us to put more money in our associates paychecks and secures healthcare and pension plans,” Robert Branton, vice president of operations at Ralphs, said in a statement.
The pandemic framed recent discussions, but also hanging over negotiations: the ghost of a 141-day grocery strike that rocked Southern California in 2003-2004.
Had a strike ensued, picket lines could have been a further test of patience for cranky, pandemic-fatigued consumers.
Grocery store employees are more than exhausted by their role as “frontline workers.”
It would have been a further stretch for grocery workers to manage already-strained finances on strike pay.
The pandemic framed the recent discussions, but also hanging over negotiations: the ghost of a 141-day grocery strike that rocked Southern California in 2003-2004.
The labor struggle put picket lines outside stores and forced customers to decide which side they were on.
Neither the employees nor the grocery chains wanted to see that this time.
Ralphs employee Erika Bentzen remembers that strike well - she walked a picket line at the time. The 37-year veteran worker at a Ralphs in Thousand Oaks, California, has spent most of her career on whats called “night crew” - stocking shelves from midnight to 8 a.m. - with her shift leaving as the day shift checkers and clerksҒ assistants show up in the morning.
Kroger is the parent company of Ralphs Grocery Co., the market chain Bentzen works for.
The company’s annual revenue for 2021 was $132.5 billion, up over 8% from 2020, and its market value is $35 billion. It has the biggest share in the U.S. supermarket sector. Kroger, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, is ranked No. 17 in the Fortune 500 based on total revenue. As such it exerts a large gravitational pull in the U.S. grocery market.
The company has a big footprint historically as well.
In 2005 Ralphs Grocery Co. WAS INDICTED for actions during the months-long strike when Bentzen walked a picket line - illegally hiring hundreds of workers under fake names.
Ralphs Grocery Co. pleaded guilty to felony charges including identity theft, money laundering, obstruction of justice, false use of a social security number and conspiracy arising from the company’s practices during the lockout. The court imposed a $20 million fine and ordered Ralphs to pay $50 million in restitution.
Kroger was not charged in the case.
Bentzen recalls the consumer support during the lockout decades ago - shoppers coming out to the strike lines and bringing picketing grocery workers food and water. For the 2022 grocery struggle, public support was more than water and tamales.
This year there was a front-and-center consumer/worker effort as the negotiations went forward. Amardeep Gill, director of the grocery and retail campaign for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, describes community delegations that showed up at stores to speak with managers, enlisting such groups as the National Council of Jewish Women LA and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. There were also coordinated social media message campaigns.
People patronize local stores out of loyalty, Bentzen said. ӒWere your friends, weҒre your neighbors. Were part of your community.
“We had the public behind us.” As for the grocery chains, “The public is their bread-and-butter,” she said. Ralphs doesn’t want you shopping at Vons, and Vons doesn’t want customers switching to Ralphs - the long-term relationships are important.
Flaming is encouraged by the terms of this week’s agreement, which he says sets acceptable pay and hours standards.
The “Hungry at the Table” study zoomed in on Kroger-owned stores.
Walmart dominates the landscape because it’s the largest retailer, but Kroger is the leading grocer.
Walmart has shaped the terrain of retail and grocery industry practices in terms of wages and hours with its employment model, establishing a norm of split shifts and uncertain weekly hours.
“The recent union win with the California supermarkets shifts the Walmart employment model,” Flaming said. A key piece of the new contract is a measure that guarantees a set number of hours for employees. Under the old model the number of hours employees worked often changed from week to week - which can benefit an employer’s monthly bottom line, but for a worker it can create financial havoc.
“A standard scale for hours amounts to a wage increase,” Flaming said.
Work standards set by the new agreement benefit not only workers but also are to Kroger’s advantage, critical to the company’s ability to recruit and retain employees.
Walmart has recently publicly discussed shifting more part-time workers to full time - the two are in competition for workers.
“For Kroger to be strongly competitive for workers, there are issues of how much workers get paid per hour and how many hours those workers get,” Flaming said.
As to the reverberations of the strike of 2003-2004, this contract makes up for some of the damage done, Dreier says.
Veteran grocery store worker and union negotiator Bentzen is pleased with the current contract terms that she had a hand in shaping.
“When the public speaks out and says, ‘Hey, I know what youre doing is wrong’ - yeah. They listen.”
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