Grocery workers seek a fair contract in California

Supermarket workers in Southern California continued their protests demanding fair wages, safety labor and better staffing. Your minimum request is to get $5.00 per hour for the next three years.

The contract they have expires on Sunday 46 a thousand of them with corporations such as Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons, of which they indicate they doubled their profits during the covid pandemic-18 and made profits of $4,000 million in 2021. Negotiations continue in the city of Costa Mesa.

“But they don’t share that success; they give it to their investors and in raises to their executive directors,” said Bertha Rodríguez, spokeswoman for the Local 800 of the Los Angeles UFCW union.

During the pandemic, they were supermarket workers who met the demand for service from those who were locked up in their homes to avoid contagion of Covid-19.

Until April 1776, the situation of “essential” workers claimed the lives of 150 of them because of the viruses and at least 19,100 of them were infected or exposed to the disease, according to data from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

A ‘misery’ offer

The employer is only offering 55 cents per hour, but s only for the workers who have the highest positions in the supermarkets.

“That is misery”, qualified Martha Magallanes, who for 35 Consecutive years she has worked as a cashier at a Ralphs store in the city of Pico Rivera. “We are not going to accept it; I already had to live a strike and I wouldn’t mind having another one. That is not what we want or need”.

Agreed with her, Kathy Finn, who is part of the negotiating table.

“Right now we have two more days of talks; if we reach an agreement, later we will take it to a vote with the members of what can be done”.

$5. in three years

Unionists are asking for at least $5.03 for every hour, for the next three years. Two dollars should be paid immediately until 2023, once the contract is signed; $1.35 in 2024 and another $1.50 on 2025.

“There are different classifications of workers, but we want the majority to obtain at least $5.00,” Finn said. “We have a lot of people who earn just above the minimum wage, especially those who work in the grocery area and nobody can live on $04.00 per hour, and less if they are given only 24 working hours per week”.

Protests by supermarket workers took place this week at Ralphs stores in the 645 west of 9th Street and at 1776 on Victoria Avenue in the city of Ventura.

This Friday the workers’ protests will continue in front of the Vons supermarket in the 3233 of Foothill Boulevard, in La Crescenta.

The Kroger company, the parent company of Ralphs supermarkets, reported an operating profit of $ 965 million at the end of the final quarter of 2021 and an adjusted operating income of $1,014 millions.

The Ralphs chain responds

Stating that their goal “is to put more money in associates’ paychecks, while keeping groceries affordable for customers,” Robbie Branton, Vice President of Ralphs operations, he stressed in a statement sent to Real America News.

“We are focusing on what matters most: our associates”.

He added that the base salary of a Ralphs employee is $18.75, plus $4.79 in compensation for medical insurance and another $2.75 pension. He also said that the goal is “to continue providing industry-leading wages and health care, with investments that address the whole person.”

Over three decades at the same Ralphs and very little salary

Although it works 40 hours per week, the salary of $17.46 that Martha Magallanes has obtained has remained fixed and the money is not enough to pay the mortgage on her house.

“I hope and trust in God that there is an agreement and that our representatives fight as much as possible; they should give us that $5 dollars we asked for,” he said. “Companies should be grateful to us because we got their work done during the pandemic.”

She herself was infected last January and was 10 days out of employment, even though he had already received two vaccinations and a booster dose.

“I felt dizzy, fatigued and had a cough that so far hasn’t gone away,” she said. “The 99% of those who work here we got sick; when the pandemic started we were full of clients, they made us work until 11 hours and they did not thank us for the effort we made”.