Grocery Workers

Safeway Inc. execs get millions while grocery workers get the shaft ("Safeway Rewards 11 Top Execs," Jan. 26). Chief Executive Steven Burd should be ashamed, but I don't think he and his fellow executives have any feelings. After all, they've cashed in their stock and made a bundle. Now the company can fall apart. Grocery companies and grocery workers have lost too much already, more than they can ever make up. But Burd and his cohorts are raking it right into their pockets, while the employees could possibly lose their pensions, health plans and any hope they have of enjoying a decent life.

Police have arrested a man on suspicion of beating a homeless man to death behind a Buena Park supermarket. Aubrey Gallegy, 51, of Buena Park is being held at the City Jail, police said. According to Police Sgt. James Banks, Gallegy attacked Daniel Ganschow, 40, about 9 p.m. Friday behind an Albertsons in the 6900 block of La Palma Avenue. The motive for the attack was unknown, police said. The beating was unrelated to the grocery workers labor dispute.

With a union deadline looming today, talks between the Southern California grocery workers union and the big supermarket chains were at a standstill Wednesday and prospects for a quick agreement looked remote. Frustrated by the slow pace of bargaining, the United Food and Commercial Workers union this month set a noon deadline for the chains to make a formal contract proposal.

The new labor agreement for Southern California grocery workers approved over the weekend contains a cautionary message for employers: Two-tier pay scales are trouble. Although that approach may slash labor expenses, it also can divide a workforce into groups of haves and have-nots, labor experts say, and it doesn't always turn out to be the cost-saver companies expect.

Kudos to Michael Hiltzik for finally saying what others have been afraid to admit: The leadership of the grocery workers union bungled the Southern California strike and hurt its members ("Costs of Dispute Hang Over Grocers," Golden State, Aug. 5). Refusing to recognize the realities of grocery competition and the threat posed by new nonunion retailers, the union leadership kept its members away from their jobs and paychecks for 141 days. When it was all over, they emerged with a contract no better than what they could have had on Day One. All the while, interestingly, union leaders kept drawing their paychecks.

Hotel unions have to face reality ("Workers at 4 Hotels in S.F. Go on Strike," Sept. 30). The hotel industry is competitive. Management must fill rooms and provide the best service with complete accommodations, all at a reasonable rate. San Francisco is already perceived as a very expensive business and tourist destination. Raising room rates to pay for more benefits for employees is not productive. Increased rates adversely affect occupancy, and that in turn reduces the need for hotel workers.

Re the supermarket strike: This is not about win or lose; this is about compromise. If there is no talking going on, nothing will happen. Like a bad marriage, if there is no communication, there will be a divorce, and everyone suffers. So, my hope is that all the leaders who are responsible for this long-standing strike will put their egos aside and think of all the people affected by their actions, so they can communicate and work diligently to end this strike. Vicky Fong Los Angeles Why blame Wal-Mart for the reduction in workforce benefits?

Re "Grocery conflict rooted in last strike," April 23 Your article says it all -- there is a right time and a wrong time to strike. Now is definitely the wrong time for grocery store workers to go on strike. Grocery stores are facing increased competition from nonunion stores, and when people go to shop elsewhere, as they did last time, many won't come back. Your article points out that Tesco, a British retailer, will be opening the first of hundreds of stores in Southern California and the southwestern United States soon.

Re "Tired and Angry, Shoppers Want Grocery Strike to End," Dec. 24: Enron. Halliburton. Tax rebates for the wealthy. Corporations are waging a war on the poor. Now the grocery workers are fighting back. They are giving up a great deal as the grocery chains try to break their union. Are we going to sit back and say it is too much of an effort to find smaller markets? Are we going to refuse to pay a little more to help in this workers' struggle? Or are we going to say that we have had enough of this abuse of the poor and middle class?

With all the other chores clamoring for Harry Hufford's attention, the Board of Supervisors has asked him to cram one more item into his shopping cart: an ill-advised proposal to limit the sale of groceries at popular big-box discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Costco. What a waste of his time and taxpayers' money. For starters, the county's jurisdiction contains exactly zero big-box stores and no parcel of land large enough to build one.