New Wave of Support for the Southern California Grocery Store Workers on Strike/Locked Out
2/20/04
Congressman Joe Hoeffel Holding the Line for America's Health Care
Philadelphia area Congressman Joe Hoeffel joined hundreds in a rally at an Albertsons owned Acme supermarket on February 12, demanding the supermarket giant respect workers and settle a fair contract with 70,000 striking/locked out Southern California grocery workers. Albertsons, along with Safeway and Kroger, has demanded the effective elimination of affordable health care benefits.
Representative Hoeffel wrote a personal letter to Albertsons CEO Larry Johnston on behalf of the supermarket workers: "I strongly urge you to settle the California strike in a way that protects the health benefits of your employees, thereby helping to slow the alarming trend of large corporations eliminating benefits to boost their bottom line. I look forward to your swift action on this issue."
The workers, who have been in the streets nearly five months fighting to protect health care, have gained the support of elected leaders across the country.
Congressional Representative Robert Brady from Pennsylvania's 1st District Urges the Companies to Drop Their Demands and Bargain in Good Faith
"We won't forget that every family in this country has beneffited from the sacrifices of people like these supermarket workers...I can't stand by while 70,00 of our sisters and brothers are being locked out or forced into a strike because you and other corporate bosses want to take them back to the bad old days."
View Rep. Brady's letter to Albertson CEO, Larry Johnston. (pdf)
National Group of Leaders Calls on Safeway to Provide Affordable Health Care Benefits, Work With Labor for Meaningful Reform
In a strongly worded letter to Safeway CEO Steve Burd, Workers' Rights Board members from around the country condemned the profitable company's attempt to cut its employees' health benefits. Signers urged CEO Burd "not to eliminate meaningful health benefits for workers and their families" and not to "avoid [its] responsibility to work with labor and other progressive organizations for health care reform." A copy of the letter was also sent to every Safeway company director.
The more than 100 prominent signatories included leaders from health care, environmental, religious, academic and political circles. Some of the signers included Ellen Bravo, Director of the National Association of Working Women, Bradford Brown, President of the Miami-Dade NAACP, Stuart Greenberg, Director of Environmental Health Watch, Kathy Miller, President of the Pennsylvania Chapter of NOW, Rev. Robert Strommen from the United Church of Christ, and Rebecca Wasserman, President of the U.S. Student Association.
View the letter. (pdf)
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Sends Strong Message to CEOs in Dispute
"Nearly one-third of the workers on strike or locked out are Latino.... Lack of access to quality health care and escalating health care costs are issues of particular concern to the Latino community which suffers from the highest uninsured rate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States....We must make every effort to eliminate this disparity, find ways to extend coverage, and work to end the erosion of employment-based health care coverage because of rising out-of-pocket health care costs that make insurance unaffordable for many workers."
View the letter. (pdf)
California Elected Officials Call for Employers to Do the Right Thing
"It is evident from your failure to even consider proposals that would save the supermarket industry in southern California literally tens of millions of dollars that it is your intention to decimate the retail food industry’s longstanding practice of providing family wage jobs with affordable healthcare benefits....
Your employees have made your company one of the most profitable and successful in the supermarket industry. They deserve the right to affordable health care and a decent standard of living. Your industry can remain profitable without destroying the middle class lives of hundreds of thousands of hard working Californians and their families....
We urge you to stop misleading the public, withdraw your unreasonable demands to gut health care benefits, and that you return to bargaining in good faith and reach an agreement that provides dignity, living wages and comprehensive health benefits for working families. These workers have helped make billions in profits for your company. It is time that you consider doing the right thing. Settle this strike and end this lockout."
View the letters: (pdf)
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