The Stop&Shop Strike
The Stop&Shop strike in the Northeast is now entering its second week. Over 30,000 unionized Stop&Shop workers are on the picket lines after months of contract negotiations with the company had produced no agreement. There are three main areas of contention in the negotiations, health care, wages, and pensions.
On health care, the proposal the company is offering would raise annual premiums for workers between $600 and $900 dollars. In addition, the company wants to implement a “spousal exclusion” which would force any employee’s spouse to could obtain coverage via the company they work for to do so, regardless of whether that coverage is inferior to what Stop&Shop offers. This could effect over 1,000 Stop&Shop families.
The company is offering raises between 25 and 50 cents an hour which the union computes to a less than 2% raise that would not offset the costs of the increased health premiums and inflation. In addition, the company proposes to freeze the overtime premium for work on Sundays at current levels for workers in states that do not mandate time-and-a-half overtime by law. What that means is that employees who work on Sunday and currently receive an extra half-day’s salary as a premium would see that premium stay at half the current salary even if they received a 50 cent raise.
Finally, the company wants to cut the pension benefit between 32% and 72% for employees hired after February, 2014, depending on whether they are full or part-time workers. The company is offering to increase its contribution to the plan by 20% for workers hired before that date in order to maintain their accruals.
This is a difficult strike for a variety of reasons. First, Stop&Shop is one of the only grocery chains in the Northeast that is unionized. On the health care issues, for instance, the employee premiums are less than half of national average. It is one of the few companies that still offers a pension, much less pension benefits to its part-time workers. On the other hand, the company’s parent, Ahold Delhaize, reported profits of $2 billion last year and recently paid out nearly $900 million in additional dividends to its shareholders, indicating that the firm is hardly struggling.
I can only speak for my local store, but the turnout on the picket line has been remarkably large and remarkably effective. According to the Strategic Resource Group which has evaluated evaluate grocery strikes for the last three decades, “In nearly 30 years, we haven’t seen a strike as effective and devastating as this one”. The Teamsters are honoring the picket line as are almost all unionized deliveries. According to the workers at my local store, only a handful of non-unionized bakeries have crossed the line. The workers are maintaining their regular shifts, but manning the picket line rather than working in the store. For many of the older workers, one I spoke to had worked for the company for nearly 40 years, this fight is less for them than for their younger union brethren.
After a week, however, tensions are starting to fray. While I was on the line, one car crossed the line with their windows rolled down, giving the middle finger to the workers and I believe I heard the driver tell them to “get a real job”. When the workers verbally replied, the occupants called the police claiming that they felt threatened by the strikers. In Wethersfield, Connecticut, a man was arrested threating to shoot the strikers with an AK-47. The workers I spoke to believed the company was soon going to keep them off the property entirely, relegating the picket line to a thin sidewalk.
According to the strike leader at the local store, Ahold had successfully negotiated four or five previous contracts with the unions. But the merger of Ahold, a Dutch firm, with Delhaize, a Belgian company, to form the combined firm of Ahold Delhaize in 2016, is what has changed the negotiating dynamic. In the US, Ahold owned Giant as well as Stop&Shop and Delhaize owned Food Lion and Hanneford.
The monetary support from the union for the strikers is truly pitiful. According to the workers, it was $100 per week, but some believed that it was just $100 in total. In Connecticut, the strikers have been allowed to file for unemployment while the strike goes on. There is a GoFundMe page for the strikers which is hoping to raise $250,000 for the workers and has raised over $32,000 so far. Please help out if you can.
European companies tend to be much more sympathetic to unions in general. But, as the strike leader noted, the real question is how long the strikers can last. Obviously, monetary support from the public as well as honoring the picket line makes it more difficult for the Ahold Delhaize, which, based on the empty parking lot at my local store, must be suffering pretty badly as well. But the workers are also realistic, recognizing that both sides must be willing compromise in order to reach an amicable solution. Until then, the strikers need our support. And if and when the strike is settled, do the workers another favor and don’t use the self-checkout line.