A 'Local' Walkout Can't Work

The 60,000 grocery workers who went on strike almost five months ago have reluctantly ratified a contract that many consider a setback in terms of wages and benefits. The labor movement and its allies hoped that the strike would be settled without significant concessions by the union. Instead, employees will now shoulder increased costs for healthcare benefits, and a "two-tier" wage system will bring new hires in at much-reduced pay levels. Was this result inevitable?

The answer is important because unions and employers throughout the country will be drawing lessons from the strike. Heading into the conflict, the three giant supermarket chains involved -- Safeway (which owns Vons), Kroger (which owns Ralphs) and Albertsons -- had most of the advantages. They understood that although the United Food and Commercial Workers was a national organization with more than a million members, the main battle would be with the seven independent locals in Southern California.

The public was very sympathetic with the strikers. But in a classic divide-and-conquer strategy, the chains calculated in advance that they could take millions of dollars in losses in their Southern California stores but cushion their losses by operating unimpeded throughout the rest of the nation. The chains convinced most institutional investors that the corporations could beat down their labor costs significantly nationwide by starting in California.

There is a reason why the United Auto Workers negotiates a national contract that covers all locals and the major automobile manufacturers under one agreement. It keeps the employer from playing one small local against another.

Historically, unions have won major strikes through grass-roots solidarity, organizational preparation and the cultivation of community and political support. The UFCW's campaign should have been nationwide from the start. Through boycotts and picketing of stores nationwide and the involvement of the AFL-CIO, the union could have demonstrated early on that it had power beyond Southern California.

When the United Farm Workers was attempting to organize the California grape-picking industry in the 1970s, its boycott of Gallo wine engaged virtually every community in the nation. Millions of shoppers started making the connection between their choices and the conditions of workers in the fields.