Follow-Up:  California Grocery Strikes

Ten months after the UFCW settled the strike by agreeing to a 'two-tier' contract, it seems that the split between younger workers and older workers has doomed the unionization of California grocery stores.

 Nearly 10 months after the end of the bitter Southern California grocery strike and lockout, the three companies and the union that waged the longest labor standoff in U.S. supermarket history are still in turmoil.

 Profits at Albertsons Inc., Safeway Inc.'s Vons and Pavilions stores and Kroger Co.'s Ralphs are being pinched by the price cuts they've made to woo shoppers alienated by the 4 1/2 -month dispute.

 The stocks of all three companies have fallen since a new contract was signed in February.

 The chains maintain that they'll rebound, largely because the two-tier contract allows them to give new hires significantly lower wages and benefits than veteran workers.

 Safeway, for one, doesn't want to wait for attrition to realize the payoff. The Pleasanton, Calif.-based company plans to offer buyouts to roughly one-third of the 22,000 people who work at its 293 Vons and Pavilions stores in Southern and Central California to hasten their replacement with new hires.

 People familiar with the buyout program said Safeway was prepared to spend up to $50 million on it. So if 1,000 workers accepted, they would receive $50,000 each.

 "They want to get rid of the old-timers and bring in a new class of citizens," said Rick Icaza, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which represents 4,266 Vons and Pavilions employees in the Los Angeles area.

 As it is, the two-tier system is breeding discord between experienced workers and new hires who aren't happy about being paid less to perform the same tasks. Turnover among new hires is unusually high, union officials said, and some new employees are chafing at paying union dues that average nearly $50 a month.

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It seems obvious that to keep the union movement going, younger employees are going to have to get on board and join the labor unions.

When those union leaders sell them out... well, there is a reason that new employees chafe at paying union dues.

I really don't know the solution here (living on strike pay alone won't go very far), but labor leaders are going to have to figure out how to address these problems - and figure out how to do so fairly loudly.