Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
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Grocery Strike
Posted on October 19, 2003 in California Watch Class Compassion
Lynn and I endorse the grocery workers’ strike now underway in California. She’s made her own comments about the affair. I would add that if we are to reward hard work, then the cause of the strikers must be considered as just. They are asking not to be alienated from the profits that they helped to create by their regular attendance and labors on the job.
From a brochure handed out by the strikers:
Facts about the Supermarket Strike
- The supermarket companies want to cut our health benefits in half — and charge us more for it! Over the next three years, their policies would shift almost a billion dollars in health care costs to employees.
- Many supermarket employees earn less than $10 an hour. Most workers average $312 a week.
- The supermarket companies want to slash the wages of new employees. This would create a new “second class” of employees who would be paid much less than their coworkers.
- The giant supermarket companies are healthy and profitable. Over the past five years, their profits have increased 91%.
- The supermarket companies try to excuse themselves by pointing to competition from Wal-Mart and other discount chains. But Wal-Mart doesn’t sell groceries in California. Even if it carried out its plans to build 40 SuperCenter stores in California, Wal-Mart would only capture 1% of the market for groceries in the state.
rmarket employees be the scapegoats for rampant corporate greed!
Please support our strike and honor our picket lines.
