Grocery strike ends

by Bailey Porter
Managing Editor

Supermarket employees across Southern California, including La Verne locations, went back to work Tuesday following a strike that lasted 141 days, but shoppers might be slow to respond.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union reached an agreement Monday for a new three year contract with the three supermarket chains involved in the dispute: Safeway (Vons), Krogers (Ralphs) and Albertsons.

“It’s a lot better than I had anticipated and it’s about time,” said Jessica Arena, 22, of the contract.

On her first day back at the Albertsons on Bonita Ave. in San Dimas, Arena said the store will probably not receive the full patronage it did before the strike, but many shoppers will return with time.

“I’ve never been through a strike. This is my first time, so I’m in the ‘hope’ mode,” she said.

Arena said she knows some Albertsons employees who went through financial hardship and even lost their homes while negotiations between the stores and unions continued for five months.

The length of the strike has left shoppers like Sylvia Andrade, 73, pleased to see a resolution.

“Well, I’m glad it’s over. It went on too long,” Andrade said, stopping into Albertsons to pick up a few items.

However, Andrade and others are not sympathetic to the actions taken by UFCW.

“We all have to pay something,” she said.

Rich Wilson, 35, said the strike cost him money.

His union of trade show installers brought in 250 non-working union members from supermarkets, he said, which took away from his union as a whole and his family.

“Whereas I’m shopping here today as a matter of convenience, most of my shopping will be done at non-striking places,” Wilson said.

“I think it was pretty lousy what they did to cost their own people and people like myself work,” he said.

“They basically harmed themselves. They’re not going to get a lot of my business.”

Albertsons is not commenting on the resolution of the strike.

However, in a press release on Monday, Dave Simonson, President of Albertsons’ Southern California division, said, “We are thrilled to welcome back our associates. Albertsons has been a market leader in Southern California for many years and we will be working very hard to win back customer loyalty and make life easier for these customers as they resume shopping in their neighborhood Albertsons store.”

An Albertsons employee who wanted to remain anonymous said that taking recovery time into account, the store is in great shape.

Also, temporary workers will be eligible to reapply for positions as anyone would off the street.