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发帖数: 29846 | 1 In Harsh Economy, Union Demands Put Crimp in Businesses Across the Country:
Recent Stories Surrounding California Grocer
November 16, 2012 by Warner Todd Huston
The biggest union news this month is the pending closing of the Hostess
Brand snack cake corporation, a company that has been an American mainstay
for decades with such products Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies. As with
the Hostess case, unions repeatedly prove that they’d rather destroy a
business with absurd demands and strikes than work with management to keep
the company alive in these tough economic times.
Another Illustration of the continued and alarming trend of unions
destroying the businesses they work for with absurd contract demands is
going on in California, the state with the worst economy and one of the
worst business climates in the country.
Recently Raley’s Family of Fine Stores, a north central California-based
grocery chain, and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) reached an
agreement over a strike that had workers walking the picket lines for nine
weeks. Naturally, the company put a brave face on this agreement but both
the strike and the agreement have put a strain on the company that can’t
help it survive in this horrid economic climate.
The California economy, one of the worst in the nation, was already hurting
the grocer before the union decided to make an attempt to squeeze blood from
the stone by forcing a strike on the company. The company had reported that
many of its locations were already losing money — to the tune of millions
per year — and even took the unusual step of allowing union reps to look
over the books to prove the fact. Naturally, despite the facts being made
readily available to them, the union continued to deny that Raley’s was in
dire financial straits.
Some of the demands that the union made on the grocer were ridiculous. In
one instance union bosses demanded that Raley’s give “amnesty” to any
employees that were caught assaulting customers or engaging in property
destruction during the strike.
The union also demanded that the company pay striking workers a “signing
bonus” to get them back to work. And why not, Safeway — another grocer in
the area — paid it. But, imagine that! The union thought it was fair that
they’d quit working, then demand that the company pay them bribes to return
to work! That isn’t a negotiation, it’s outright extortion.
And while the union is claiming the financially stressed grocer is stingy
and must pay employees more, the local UFCW head is living the high life off
the backs of the union’s membership. It is reported that Jacques Loveall,
President of the UFCW in California, makes over $274,000 a year. Loveall is
also featured as one of the top entries in a list of Sacramento’s highest
paid executives. I’ve even heard that this union bigwig drives a
Lamborghini and has put a private plane at his disposal. The apple didn’t
fall far from the tree, either, as Jacques is just carrying on the “family
” business inheriting his throne from his father, who enjoyed similar perks
at the expense of real working men and women. A real man of the people,
that.
This particular strike also indulged a loathsome practice that is becoming
commonplace in strikes throughout the nation: the use of non-union people,
often paid below minimum wage, to walk picket lines. Imagine this situation,
won’t you? A union strikes because members feel they aren’t getting paid
enough yet not only are they not interested enough in their own strike to
walk picket lines themselves, they hire scabs to do the picketing. And then
the union pays the scabs peanuts to do the picketing. This hypocrisy is
happening in strikes everywhere, not just California.
This strike is reminiscent of another recent strike of a grocer in Tacoma,
Washington. In a strike against a small downtown grocer — the only grocery
in the whole area — even those who would have nominally supported the
strikers got sick and tired of the whole situation. In that case the company
was hurt and so were the customers.
Unions are wearing out their welcome all across the nation, it seems. |
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