Supermarket facing strike threat Cape Cod Online

Supermarket facing strike threat Cape Cod Online

By Sarah Shemkus
sshemkus@capecodonline.com
February 13, 2010

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. and its unionized employees are heading for a showdown.

The current contract between the supermarket chain and the 43,000 southern New England members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, or UFCW, is set to expire Feb. 20. And, unsatisfied with the demands being made by the company during negotiations, union organizers are planning a strike vote for Feb. 21.

Stop & Shop, meanwhile, has been advertising for temporary workers to fill positions in case of a work stoppage, a move that union representatives say is merely for show.

"It's just bad theater," said James Riley, secretary-treasurer of the union's Local 328, which represents workers in Rhode Island and on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. "After two negotiation sessions, to put ads all over New England advertising for part-time, temporary help is a slap in the face to all of their people who work for them."

At issue in the current contract negotiations, Riley said, are three major points: health benefits, pensions and wage increases.

"They want to put more of a burden on the workers" for health benefits, he said. And "they don't want to fund the pension fund in a way that would continue to be fruitful for the employees."

The company also wants to replace wage increases with a bonus system, Riley said.

"We don't like bonuses, we like general wage increases," he said.

Stop & Shop did not return calls for comment yesterday.

The chain has 12 locations on Cape Cod, three on Martha's Vineyard and one on Nantucket.

The union negotiates a new contract with Stop & Shop every three years, Riley said. The current round of negotiations began in mid-January, he said.

On Feb. 1, Stop & Shop began accepting applications for temporary workers. The positions "would occur in the event there is a strike or lockout because of a labor dispute," according to ads that have run in the Cape Cod Times.

The ads list wages of $12 per hour for part-time workers and $15 per hour for full-time positions. Current part-time workers can earn anything from $9 to $16 per hour, Riley said.

For the store to offer temporary workers starting wages higher than those earned by many existing employees is "insulting," he said, particularly considering the business' financial strength.

Stop & Shop and its sister chain — the Giant supermarkets in the mid-Atlantic states — had a strong financial performance in 2009, according to information released by their Amsterdam-based parent company, Ahold.

Together, the two chains saw net sales increase by 4.6 percent, to $17.9 billion last year, compared with 2008.

Employee unions are common in most major supermarket chains, said Mike Berger, senior editor of the Griffin Report of Food Marketing, a food industry trade publication based in Duxbury.

The current contentious negotiations between Stop & Shop and the UFCW are not surprising, he said.

"I've seen this before and no doubt I will see this again," Berger said. "And with a depressed economy, you're going to see this a lot more."

Nonetheless, he thinks it likely that the two sides will work out a deal in advance of the Feb. 21 strike vote.

"You're going to see a lot of posturing," he said. "But if the two sides want to settle, this will get done, probably as the deadline approaches