Labor Relations: Giant, Safeway Joint Union Labor, Contract Negotiations

As the case would have it, the Safeway and Giant food employees are part of the same union, the United Food and Commercial Workers. Every four years, a new labor and benefits contract must be negotiated between the Union and the Safeway and Giant executives. The sign advertising for part-time workers, I came to realize, was for ‘just-in-case’ peace of mind whereby if a new labor contract wasn’t settled upon quickly, an army of temporary workers would be available to fill the place of the full-time store workers who would be on strike. What ultimately happened was that a new contract was settled upon with relative ease, and all the affected grocery stores opened back up right on schedule. Hence, any potential temporary workers never saw a minute of floor time.
As far as the new labor contract goes, Safeway and Giant workers must pay a greater healthcare deductible ($300 vs. $200), and must pay $15 per week to receive full health care coverage for their entire family, beyond the deductible. On the contrary, starting salaries and yearly raises for all job taxonomies increased (“Safeway, Giant Workers Ratify New Contract”, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2008/04/01/AR2008040101060.html).
Analysis
The fact that there is a labor dispute or contract negotiation at all is evidence of some class conflict. In quite a classic example, the interests of the grocery store workers are at odds with those of the grocery store owners. The existence of a labor contract in the first place is clear proof of a capitalistic arrangement, for capitalism is “a configuration characterized by the exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few,” and is described as “the drive for wealth through ever-expanding profit by the owner class” (Lengermann and Niebrugge, “Class Notes Karl Marx,” Page 5). What the Safeway/Giant executives, the owners, seek to achieve with each labor contract renegotiation is a trimming of costs for the sole purpose of improving the company’s bottom line. The conflict of interest is that the workers seek to earn higher wages and more comprehensive fringe benefits, such as healthcare. Life experience, both from an individual and societal perspective, for these two groups (the workers and the owners), therefore, is shaped evidently by “the power relation among groups,” as Africana theory points out (Lengermann and Niebrugge, “Class Notes The Africana Theorists,” Page 2).
In the above context, hiring a stash of temporary workers in the event of a true labor dispute, therefore, seems like a criminal act. Pat and Jill describe this “reserve army of labor” as a means by which the owners can “keep the price of labor down” (Lengermann and Niebrugge, “Class Notes Karl Marx,” Page 6). It is obvious that the wages and fringe benefits combined that Safeway/Giant workers earn presently amount to more than $12 per hour for each worker, which is why paying temporary workers $12 per hour is actually a short-term bargain for these major grocery chains which consume over 50% of the grocery foods market in this region (“Safeway, Giant Workers Ratify New Contract”).
I spoke to a Giant Food worker named Charlie who told me about his involvement in the Union’s negotiation process. He insisted that the topics on the table in the upcoming contract negotiation (healthcare and wages) were of particular importance to him, and he told me several stories about friends of his who had become ill and relied on the healthcare insurance that they received from Giant Food to survive for years while coping with their illness. When I asked what motivated him to get involved, he named three sources: 1) Seeing his friends and their families suffer from a major illness and bump up against their Giant Food healthcare insurance cap, 2) Having to cope with meager annual pay raises, and 3) The movie John Q. This clearly is a man who Marx would have been proud. Charlie’s efforts to advocate on the behalf of his fellow workers and friends are an attempt to reduce the alienation that Safeway/Giant store workers face as a whole. Essentially, he is attempting to enhance the cooperative experience that the entire group must endure on a daily basis by improving home life via better fringe benefits. All of this, ultimately, seeks to reach the one end that Marx and Gilman consider the resting point of all society: the joy of collective work or of work in general.
Conclusion
While management-union disputes seem to have evolved into a social fact as a result of their frequency, it is clear that a level of equilibrium still has yet to be reached. Most obviously, Safeway and Giant executives announce this disparity with huge signs advertising for part-time workers to undercut the ordinary staff that may, heaven forbid, want a little something more. Africana theory describes “equilibrium” as “the healthy relationship between power and difference in which groups are relatively equally empowered and the interaction among them is marked by negotiation rather than domination” (Lengermann and Niebrugge, “Class Notes The Africana Theorists,” Page 2). The latter half of this paradigm seems to be upheld, for the existence of the union as a voice for the workers ensures negotiation rather than total domination. On the contrary though, both groups are not equally empowered. The Safeway/Giant management still wields the power to hire temporary workers to take the place of full-time workers in the event of a strike. In essence, the grocery companies, to an extent, can afford not to agree to a new labor contract. This kind of action would put full-time workers, the ones who need their salary, out of work until it hurt so much that they had to give in eventually. Thus, equilibrium clearly has yet to be reached.
To create a level playing field between the union and the grocery chain executives, an enhanced set of rules or codified law would need to be written. Specifically, an effective document would disallow Safeway/Giant from hiring temporary workers in the event of a labor dispute. The idea behind a strike is to hurt a company into giving its workers what they want. If Safeway/Giant can hire temporary workers to fill the places of striking employees, then clearly the grocery chains exert greater power, and distresses equilibrium. Only when the workers act collectively to preserve their jobs and their livelihood, will a true balance of “power and difference” be closer at hand (Lengermann and Niebrugge, “Class Notes The Africana Theorists,” Page 2)



Works Cited
Lengermann, Patricia and Jill Niebrugge-Brantley. 2005. “Class Notes The Africana Theorists, Spring 2008 American University, Washington D.C.” (https://blackboard.american.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_43370_1%26url%3D).
---. 2005. “Class Notes Karl Marx, Spring 2008 American University, Washington D.C.” (https://blackboard.american.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_43370_1%26url%3D).
Mui, Ylan Q. "Safeway, Giant Workers Ratify New Contract." The Washington Post. 2 Apr. 2008. 30 Apr. 2008 .