Shopper Peter Wormer is baffled. He can't believe that another supermarket strike could be around the corner. He said he stopped shopping at Vons -- for good -- the last time around.
Longtime Albertsons worker Hugh Evans doesn't get it either. "I don't want a strike," he said. Last time, he said, it cost him $20,000 in savings.
Even Costco executives are shaking their heads at the idea -- despite the prospect of more shoppers coming their way. "Incredulous," said company Vice President Bob Nelson.
Southern Californians are holding their breath. They understand why grocery workers want better wages and benefits. And they know the stores are fighting more competitors than ever.
But another supermarket strike? How did we get here again, people on all sides of the dispute ask. The answers lie in the last strike and what has evolved since then.
The grocery business in Southern California is more competitive than ever. Workers say that they got a bum deal in the last settlement and that wages are increasingly hard to live on. And rising healthcare costs are alarming both employers and workers.
All of these concerns have come together in the high-anxiety caldron of collective bargaining -- a little more than three years after an acrimonious 141-day strike and lockout rattled workers, shoppers and retailers across the Southland.
"It is out of control," said Kelly Pierce, an Albertsons worker in Anaheim. "Are we going to have to go through this every three years now to get a contract?"
Some shoppers say they also dread the possibility. "I'm very concerned," said Ronald Ross of West Los Angeles. "The last time, it put consumers in a bad position."
Negotiations resumed April 16, 12 days after talks collapsed. Both the union and the employers say they hope to reach an agreement without a work stoppage.
But in the last month, the two sides have traded threats of strikes and lockouts.
Albertsons workers voted March 25 to strike the chain if negotiations deadlocked. The grocery companies fired back about a week later. They declared that if the United Food and Commercial Workers union called a strike at only one chain, the two others would lock out their own union workers. And talks broke down.
But after a cooling-off period, the two sides went back to the table, where they are wrestling over wages, health benefits and work rules.
Both sides say they don't want a strike.
