Grocery Workers Rally in Arcadia

Fullerton - Hundreds of grocery workers took to the streets today, rallying outside the corporate headquarters of Vons in Arcadia and Albertsons in Fullerton to push for a new contract.

The workers' contract with the Vons, Albertsons and Ralphs expired March 6, but they have continued to work under the terms of the previous pact. Members of the union representing grocery workers -- United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 -- voted in April to authorize a strike if a deal isn't reached.

Hundreds of workers rallied this morning outside the Arcadia headquarters of Vons, then moved south for a midday rally at Albertsons headquarters in Fullerton. They plan to rally later this afternoon in Compton, outside Ralphs headquarters.

"While these grocery chains scored $5 billion in profits over the last three years, they want to shift the cost of health care to workers and taxpayers just to boost their profits another 3 percent," according to Rick Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770. "We want a fair contract that respects the workers who are the backbone of these profitable companies."

John Grant, secretary treasurer of UCFW 770, told Fox11 there has been no progress on the key issue of employee health care, "and we haven't even gotten to discussing wages yet."

"We have to show the companies, because they seem to be blind, deaf and dumb, that the community wants a decent contract for their grocery workers," he said.

In a joint statement, officials from the grocery chains said they remain committed to reaching an agreement with the union, but said they were "disappointed" by the union's response to a health-care proposal made by the stores 42 days ago. The response "did nothing to address the rising cost of health care, even though we've been talking about that issue for months."

According to the statement, the health-care proposal called for employee contributions of $9 a week for single coverage and $23 a week for family coverage -- compared to the national average of $76 a week for family coverage. The companies also noted that half of their employees pay no weekly contributions for health care, and those hired after March 2004 pay $7 a week for single coverage and $15 for family coverage.

"The union leaderships' attention would be better focused at the bargaining table as we are discussing difficult issues, and tough problems are not solved easily or quickly," according to the companies' statement.

The sides have already reached an agreement on pension plans.

Both sides are working to avoid a repeat of the 2003 grocery store lockout, which affected the Albertsons, Ralphs/Food For Less and the Vons/Pavilions chains. The lockout was implemented by the stores after the workers had authorized a strike.

Picket lines altered shopping availability for millions of Southern California customers for more than a month and resulted in tumultuous staff turnovers and rough economic times for the locked-out workers.