On strike

 Arnold Rubin talks in a video about 

multi-generational businesses in Reading

My grandmother, mother and I all food shopped at the Atlantic Supermarket in Reading. Three generations (Grandfather, Father, Son) of Rubins were the owners. My memory is strongest of the father. Whenever I finished the cookie aisle, Sid the Father, would be arranging Wonder Bread more often than not, to keep the display neat and inviting.

Immediately after my father left and before my mother had her own business up and running, they were quick to give us credit. Although it was a short period, it made a difference in our lives.

It was a family store for Reading families.

After moving to Boston in my late 20s, I did my shopping mostly at Haymarket or Stop&Shop.

Haymarket is nothing like the friendly French marchés, with Boston stand owners often yelling at customers, but the great fresh fruits and veggies at a fraction of supermarket price and the atmosphere was worth it. We bought in quantity and shared it with others.

Stop&Shop began in 1892, when Solomon and Jeanie Rabinovitz opened the Greenie Store at in Boston's North End. This morphed into the Economy Grocery Stores Company and eventually a self-service store. The name Stop & Shop was given in 1946.

From 1995-2015, Stop&Shop was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ahold, a Dutch supermarket operator when there was a merger with  Belgian Delhaize Group  to form Ahold Delhaize. Typical events in our lifetime.

Stop&Shop has 134 locations in Massachusetts, 92 in Connecticut, and 27 in Rhode Island — roughly a 21% of the region’s food retail market and is the only large grocery chain in New England with a fully-unionized store workforce.For three months the United Food and Commercial Workers  (UFCW) have been negotiating a contract with them with no results. Now they are on strike.

Strikers say that the chain wants to cut wages and benefits. The company says, "The unions proposed a contract that would increase the company’s costs,” Stop & Shop officials said Thursday. “This would make our company less competitive in the mostly non-union New England food retail marketplace.”

The union points out that Ahold Delhaize earned $2 billion in profits last year and approved a 11.1 percent shareholder dividend increase just this week, UFCW leaders say their requests for more are “completely reasonable.” Instead of raising prices, they could cut bloated salaries and slightly reduce shareholders dividends while still giving them plenty.

The union believes cashiers will be replaced with self-checkout stations. They said about the cuts,
“Protecting health care coverage so you can keep your family healthy, adjusting wages to keep pace with regional cost-of-living increases, and maintaining pension contributions so you can retire with dignity is not too much to ask,” UFCW leaders wrote to members Wednesday. “It is what you have earned and deserve.” (Boston.com)

The Teamsters are refusing to deliver to Stop&Shop. Customers are refusing to cross picket lines.

Today I read an article in The New Yorker about Eugene Debs who fought for workers in the beginning of the 20th century. The issues are the same.

Because it is a union shop, the employees are better off than in non-union stores. That the workers want a better share of the profits, is not unreasonable. They do almost all the work. Even with increased pay and/or benefits, there would be plenty left for management and shareholders.

The answer is not to reduce the union's benefits, but to increase to the benefits and salaries of those in non-union shops. And although unions are far from perfect, they raise the standard of living of their workers.

The Atlantic wasn't a union shop. I have no idea how well or badly the employees were treated. I was just a customer, a satisfied one. Today, it no longer exists. No one wanted to take it on after Arnold retired.

I can't imagine eating Wonder Bread after living with European bread. Sometimes it is so fresh, it still has the oven heat, but when Sid was rearranging the packaged bread, I appreciated the care he showed. 

I believe in unions. It is the only balance against the raw power and greed of the corporate leaders. I wish UFWC luck. I wish the other grocery workers would get a union so they could lead better lives.