Cleaning up in Aisle 1

KARL MARX wrote that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce," but you don't have to be a communist to recognize the tragedy of the 2003-04 supermarket strike in Southern California. Nearly 60,000 grocery workers struck for 141 days, and their employers -- Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons -- lost billions of dollars and thousands of shoppers to nonunion competitors. And it could all happen again.

Three years ago, the three big supermarket chains soundly defeated locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Workers' retirement and health insurance benefits were slashed and a widely scorned two-tier pay scheme -- a higher scale for veterans, a lower one for new hires -- was instituted. Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons contended that they had no other choice but to lower labor costs to remain competitive and hold on to market share if Wal-Mart superstores started sprouting in the Southland.

Although -- thanks to community opposition -- the dreaded Wal-Mart invasion never materialized, the economic logic of another supermarket strike remains compelling. The growth of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market, which imitate Wal-Mart's labor practices, continues, and British retailer Tesco, another low-wage operator, plans to open hundreds of stores here. Competition for shoppers' dollars will thus remain fierce. So the grocery union seems doomed to another defeat as it vainly tries to defend a shrinking number of high-wage jobs in the food industry.

But wait. On the eve of May Day, a workers' holiday in many nations, why must trade unionism be a shrinking, always-on-the-defensive institution, destined for a slow and painful death when confronted by the Wal-Marts and Toyotas of our time? After all, the Wagner Act -- whose preamble forcefully asserts the right of workers to form "unions of their own choosing" -- has been on the books for nearly one-third of our republic's existence. And if one could imagine a unionized Wal-Mart that paid high wages and offered good benefits, then the probability of another supermarket strike would simply evaporate because the downward pressure on wages would cease.