D.C. area grocery negotiation update

washingtonpost.com (Michael Barbaro)

reports: “Grocery Contract Talks Near Deadline”

Negotiators for the region’s two biggest supermarket chains and the union representing their 18,000 Washington area workers met through the evening yesterday to try to agree on a new contract before a Tuesday night deadline.

With their current contract set to expire Tuesday night, Giant and Safeway workers are scheduled to vote on their employers’ final proposal beginning tomorrow at 8 a.m. If employees reject the contract, they could vote to strike, triggering a walkout Wednesday at 350 area grocery stores.

“We’re hopeful,” said the chain’s negotiator, Harry Burton. C. James Lowthers, the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400, declined to comment. . . .

If there is a strike, Giant and Safeway say they will operate stores on a normal schedule, relying on a combination of managers and more than 3,000 temporary workers. . . .

Even if workers at just one of the two chains vote to strike, both are expected to end up on the picket line. Giant and Safeway have signed an agreement to lock out workers if the UFCW attempts, as it did in California, to strike only one of the supermarkets at the bargaining table.

washingtonpost.com (Michael Barbaro)also had this more in-depth and human-interest type story relating to these negotiations: “Grocery Workers Try to Keep the Good Life;Middle Class Could Be Out of Reach Under New Safeway, Giant Contract”

This article profiles a very long-term Safeway cashier with a very middle-class lifestyle(Glennis T. Mitchiner). An interesting part of this lifestyle is that even his wife shops at Wal-Mart: “‘I can get more for our money,’ she says, as her husband buries his face in his hands.”

Even more interesting:

Economists describe Mitchiner’s line of work as unskilled. But not Mitchiner. Before he could ever run a cash register, he had to memorize hundreds of product names and price codes, which he easily rattles off:

Banana, 4011. Red Delicious apple, 4016. Granny Smith, 4017.

Behind the register, wearing a black Safeway smock and cap, the 6-foot-6 Mitchiner says it often feels like he operates his own small business, with customers who rely on him to solve their problems.

“Slide your card across like that,” Mitchiner explained to a middle-aged man on a recent morning. “No, like this,” he says, showing him again. Behind him, shoppers grow irritated. Eyes begin to roll, but Mitchiner just smiles.

Shoppers pepper Mitchiner with questions all day. Where is the low-fat salsa? When are chicken thighs going on sale? Why are pre-cut canned peaches out of stock?

He answers them all. As he sees it, he is what keeps customers coming back.

But as the grocery chains see it, Mitchiner, or at least costly employees like him, are part of their financial problem. Safeway pays Mitchiner $17.66 an hour and $35.32 for work on Sundays. Wages there are up to three times those of nonunion stores. . . .

So how hard will he fight? He says his family can probably go about two months without his paycheck. Looking at the California strike, he said, “Shoot, if I were out five months, I would take a contract like that.” Read more

The last comment supports my prediction: this and the other grocery contracts will be settled without a strike because of the impact of the California strike on both parties’ attitude towards bargaining.

The discussion of the skills and customer-service role — and obvious corporate loyalty — of the profiled employee suggests that perhaps the way for these stores to compete, instead of the much-ballyhooed “race to the bottom” led by Wal-Mart, is to work really hard on getting the most benefit from the skills and experience of such employees.

I’m not sure how they can best do this, but reading about this guy, and contrasting him to the low-wage, customer-service-oblivious employees one encounters in so many businesses today, makes me feel there ought to be a way to make sure he provides enough value to the Company — and its customers — to justify his current pay and benefits.

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