Home > Lessons from the Picket Line
By Peter Dreier and Kelly Candaele, AlterNet
Editor’s Note: A version of this commentary ran in the
L.A. Times on March 3.
The 60,000 grocery workers who went on strike almost
five months ago have reluctantly ratified a contract
that most consider a setback in terms of their wages
and benefits. In Los Angeles and around the country,
the labor movement and its allies hoped the strike
would be settled on the union’s terms — without
significant givebacks. Instead, employees will now
shoulder increased costs for health care benefits and a
"two-tier" wage system will bring new hires in at
dramatically reduced levels.
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) members and
others in the labor community are asking themselves
whether this result was inevitable — the inexorable
logic of economic forces over which neither the grocery
chains nor the union had control — or were there
strategic missteps that could have been avoided. In
other words, had the UFCW done things differently,
could they have won the strike?
The answer is important because unions throughout the
country will be looking at the strike and drawing
lessons from it. The grocery chains are feeling their
oats from this contract settlement. They have other
union contract negotiations coming up around the
country, including in northern California in September.
They, and the business community in general, hope that
the recent settlement scares the hell out of other
unions. They hope that unions throughout the country
accept that "givebacks" are now unavoidable. Will the
grocery chains’ victory intimidate other unions from
using the strike as a strategic tool? Will it
discourage workers in non-union workplaces from joining
unions? What should they learn?
Heading into the conflict last fall, the three giant
supermarket chains had most of the advantages. The
Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., which owns Ralphs, is the
nation’s eighteenth-largest company, with revenues of
more than $51 billion. Albertson’s, Inc. based in
Idaho, ranks thirty-fifth, with revenues of $36
billion. Safeway, which owns Vons and Pavilions, and is
based in Pleasanton, California, ranks forty-first,
with revenues of $32 billion. These chains understood
that while the UFCW is a national organization with
over a million members, the main battlefield would be
with the seven independent and often quarrelsome union
locals in Southern California. The union is highly
decentralized. Dozens of distinct locals around the
country bargain separate contracts many with different
contract expiration dates, salary and benefits levels
and workplace rules.
Throughout southern California, the public was
obviously very sympathetic with the strikers. The
chains lost about $2 billion of business as consumers
shifted to less convenient stores. Supporters joined
picket lines at stores throughout the region. But the
focus on Southern California region was inadequate. In
a classic divide and conquer strategy, the stores
calculated well in advance that they could take
billions of dollars in losses in their Southern
California stores but cushion their losses by operating
unimpeded throughout the rest of the country. The three
chains have a total of 6530 stores nationwide, while
workers in only 860 stores in Southern California were
on strike. The corporate chains convinced most
institutional investors that they could amortize any
losses over a period of years if they could beat down
their labor costs significantly nationwide by starting
in California. The grocery chains knew that the UFCW
had a limited strike fund. Employees need to work or
risk losing their homes, their health insurance and
their kids’ college tuition.
There is a reason why the United Auto Workers negotiate
a national contract that covers all locals and the
three major automobile manufacturers under one
agreement. It keeps the employer from playing one small
local off against another, utilizing givebacks from one
group to pressure the same from another.
The Hotel and Restaurant Employees unions, which also
negotiates contracts with major hotel chains on a local
basis, is currently designing a national strategy to
align their local contracts with other large city
contracts throughout the country.
Historically, unions have won major strikes through
grass roots solidarity, organizational preparation and
the astute cultivation of community and political
support. The UFCW’s campaign should have been
nationwide from the start. Through national action such
as boycotts, picketing of stores throughout the
country, and the early involvement of the AFL-CIO, the
union could have demonstrated early on that they could
affect the employers beyond Southern California.
When the United Farm Workers were attempting to
organize in the California grape picking industry
beginning in the 1960s, their boycott of Gallo wine
engaged virtually every community in the nation.
Millions of shoppers started making the connection
between their consumer choices and the conditions of
workers in the California grape fields.
In the recent grocery strike, however, it wasn’t until
three months into the strike that the national AFL-CIO
was brought in to galvanize support, but little was
done to mobilize allies in cities across the country.
Even in California, the state AFL-CIO initiated a
statewide boycott only a few weeks ago.
The Southern California grocery workers union hadn’t
resorted to the strike weapon since 1978. It had
negotiated good contracts, lifting baggers and clerks
into the middle class, in the context of labor-
management cooperation. But in recent years, the
context had changed. Like much of corporate America,
the chains’ top executives focused more closely on
profits and dividends. In addition, they faced
escalating health insurance costs and threats to their
market share from non-union Wal-Marts. Union leaders
warned members that the approaching contract
negotiations would be tougher than previous years, but
did not develop a comprehensive strike strategy to
counter the chains’ new intransigence.
To win a strike, unions need to communicate with and
mobilize their allies — other unions, consumers,
community groups, religious congregations and college
students, among them. Four years ago, when the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU) was preparing for
its "justice for janitors" strike in LA, it spent a
great deal of time and energy a year before the strike
cultivating supporters, explaining their position to
community groups and clergy, and making sure that
elected officials were briefed on the critical demands
they were pushing for. When the strike eventually came,
there were thousands of supporters ready to march,
speak to the media, and lobby their elected leaders to
put pressure on the building owners to bargain fairly.
This transformed the janitor’s strike into a crusade
rather than a bureaucratic ritual between labor and
management.
Many local clergy, community groups and other unions
participated in rallies and prayer vigils. Some even
joined UFCW members in civil disobedience. Several
presidential candidates — Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt,
and, last year, John Kerry — joined workers on picket
lines. From the get-go, however, the grocery workers’
crusade should have included marches down Wilshire and
Cesar Chavez Boulevards, rallies with celebrities, and
free concerts with sympathetic entertainers like Bonnie
Raitt, Ani DeFranco, and Willie Nelson to draw public
attention to the cause.
Unions, environmental groups, and community
organizations often use tactics to embarrass key
corporate decision-makers who refuse act responsibly
(such as paying workers a living wage) in order to
isolate them from lenders and stockholders, and to
bring pressure on key company board members from their
social, civic, and business friends. Many of these
board members share overlapping membership on boards of
other companies, charities, foundations and other do-
gooder groups that help to soften their public image as
"corporate citizens."
A well thought out "corporate campaign" would have
reinforced what the public already understands — -
that Vons, for example, is not a faceless corporation
but is run by real people who have some choices about
how they treat their workers. It was three months into
the strike before public attention was directed towards
Steve Burd, Vons CEO, who was quarterbacking the
negotiations for the three chains. Three weeks ago a
group of clergy marched on his house — a tactic used
to publicly embarrass key targets that refuse to be
accountable for their actions. The union could have
focused on other potential targets — such as Peter
Magowan, grandson of Safeway’s founder, Safeway board
member, and owner of the San Francisco Giants. In a
strong union town like San Francisco, how would Magowan
have reacted to a "Giants Fans for Social Justice"
group, for instance, who threatened to picket Giants
games unless he pressured Burd to ease his more extreme
demands?
It would be tragic if America’s working people, and its
union leaders, learn the wrong lesson from the recent
UFCW experience — that corporate might always beats
union right, that money always prevails over social
justice.
The UFCW rank and file who stood on strike for over
four months showed a tenacity and devotion to their
organization that is rare in today’s America. After
seven or eight weeks it was clear to the strikers that
they would be unlikely to gain back in a new contract
what they had lost in wages while not working. That
they stayed strong was not a testament to greed, as
some cynical commentators have suggested, but a
positive sign that there are still people who are
willing to sacrifice for others that they don’t even
know. One of the major criticisms of the new contract
by strikers returning to work is the two-tier system
that will apply to new hires that will start at a lower
base pay than they will. The strikers walked out for
months partly to protect people who have not even been
hired yet. It’s not a bad example to set for children.
It remains to be seen what lessons the labor movement
and its supporters learn from the Southern California
labor struggle.
One lesson is that the loyalty of local union members
and the sympathy of the majority of local consumers,
while impressive, wasn’t enough to win the strike. The
union could not beat huge national corporations without
expanding the war to a national battleground.
A second lesson is that rising health care costs should
be the top domestic priority not only for unions and
their allies but also for businesses that provide
insurance. Over 40 million Americans lack health
insurance. A growing number of employers are
dismantling their health insurance or dramatically
increasing their employees’ premiums and co-payments.
Employers, who do offer insurance, like the three
grocery chains, have an incentive to reduce their costs
by joining the battle for nationwide universal health
insurance. This will obviously be an important issue in
the current presidential contest.
The third lessons is that while the grocery workers
strike was abut health benefits and wages, it was also
about something much larger: the Wal-Marting of
America. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer with
1.2 million workers, and its biggest retailer, with
1,397 supercenters, symbolizes the "low road" corporate
strategy that relies on part-time workers, pays low
wages without benefits, and outsources as much
production as possible to sweatshops in Asia and Latin
America. It currently accounts for 19 percent of the
nation’s grocery sales and is now attempting to make
inroads in Los Angeles and other urban areas. The
grocery chains argued that they could not compete with
Wal-Marts low prices and low labor costs.
Although the chains could certainly have afforded to
meet the UFCW’s reasonable contract demands, their
efforts to mimic the low-road approach will continue
until Wal-Mart is unionized. The UFCW has attempted to
organize Wal-Mart workers and met with stiff
resistance. Wal-Mart has engaged in outrageous union-
busting tactics, including firing workers who support
union drives and other major violations of federal
labor law. The battle to unionize Wal-Mart should be
the AFL-CIO’s top priority for the next decade. It will
require enormous resources and all the allies that the
labor movement can muster. This is the biggest
challenge that the labor movement has faced since the
1930s.
Back then, the fledgling industrial unions recognized
that organizing General Motors, at the time the
nation’s largest employer, was key to making the labor
movement an important political force. The entire labor
movement backed the United Auto Workers’ organizing
drive, including the famous Flint "sit-down" strike in
1937. The UAW victory prompted U.S. Steel, another
corporate giant, to sign a contract with the young
steelworkers union. During the following 25 years, the
labor movement’s membership and political clout grew,
lifting millions of workers out of poverty and making
America a middle-class society.
The auto and steel industries dominated the American
economy back then the way Wal-Mart does now. Wal-Mart
is pulling down America’s middle-class standard of
living and signaling other companies, whether unionized
or not, that it’s time to go to war against working
families.
In the U.S., any union battle — from organizing drives
to contract negotiations — is an uphill fight. More
than any other democratic nation, America’s labor laws
are biased toward management and against workers.
That’s why only 11% of the workforce are union members,
despite surveys that show that a majority of workers
could join a union if they didn’t fear reprisals from
employers, including getting fired. Reforming and
updating the nation’s labor laws is the civil rights
issue of the 21st century.
Despite the UFCW recent setback, the grocery workers
strike helped put a human face on the major issues
facing America’s working families — declining wages,
lack of adequate health insurance, the export of jobs
to overseas sweatshops, and the uneven playing field
created by one-sided labor laws.
The central lesson of the strike is that to compete
with the overwhelming power of corporate America, the
labor movement needs to be bolder. The future of
America as a middle-class nation depends on it.
Kelly Candaele is a trustee of the Los Angeles
Community College District. Peter Dreier is Dr. E.P.
Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and Director
of the Urban & Environmental Program at Occidental
College.