the line in the sand
in a resent union notification the meeting times and dates for a deadline and formall strick vote have been declaired the deadline for a new constract proposal is June 21, and the strike vote meeting if the proposed contract is not exemptible is June 25 This is it if you have been fallowing the southern California food workers strike possibilities you do know that there has been several problems with the conditions that labor face in the industry. Well if have not the union has drawn a line in the sand and given the big three Albertsons, Safeway, and Ralf’s that form the majority of the southern California market have not agree to remove the two level wage system that was forced on southern California workers after the disastrous strike of 2003. The big three are proposing a three level wages system with no pay increase for the employees and a benefit decrease. Now after several contract extensions and seven months of completely unproductive negotiations the Southern California local unions and our larger organization the UFCW have with drawn from negotiations and have left the bargaining table after the insulting offer that they presented to the union members. This is reminiscent of the work stoppage that the big three caused in 2003 that put 60,000 UFCW members on picket lines for nearly five months and disrupted shoppers and communities throughout the region in there attempt to break the union though causing financial difficulty to the individual members. Once again, I have provided my background materials to this journal posting at the end of the journal. The first of my sources is the United Food and Commercial Workers union web site at http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/index.cfm?pressReleaseID=312 .
