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Feature:
What To The Grocery Worker Is The 4th of July?
Two Grocery Lifers Sound Off.
(With all respect to Frederick Douglass).
1. From A Warehouseman.
By Frank Halstead
Frank Halstead is a 38 year grocery warehouseman with Ralphs Grocery Company (Kroger), Compton , CA. Teamsters Local 572.
With the 250 year commemoration of the founding of the United States of America this 4th of July, millions of people will celebrate with fireworks, BBQ’s, and cookouts. Most never give a thought to the workers who made all that food possible. Some of those workers are Grocery industry workers: the workers in the Warehouses, the truck drivers who deliver the groceries to the stores and the workers in the stores.
Grocery industry workers don’t view the 4th of July holiday like most everyone else does. We view it as more stress and more work. See, while most people are looking forward to the holiday to relax and do the things that bring them joy and happiness, grocery workers know the long hours and increased workloads that we will endure meeting the customers’ demands.
The good news for grocery workers is this holiday will come and go like all the holidays before it and everyone will have their celebrations because we will do the work that we always do to meet those customer demands and make sure the holiday is a success.
The bad news is grocery workers are facing unprecedented threats to their future job security in an industry that is constantly changing. The employers’ unquenchable thirst for profit and market share is fueling automation, robotics, AI, third partying, driverless vehicles and squeezing existing workers out of every drop of productivity possible. So the question is, who will do the work?
I started my career as a warehouseman for a small chain of supermarkets named Boys Markets in 1987. It was a job that had a living wage, medical insurance and a pension. Hard, demanding work that offered a sense of nobleness. Feeding people is noble and we contribute to that. A job that offered a career. A good union job. Little did I know I was getting a front row seat to the massive consolidation that would change the grocery industry for the worse, forever, a change that would reduce consumer choices, reduce competition and concentrate the majority of grocery market share into the hands of a few billion dollar corporations.
The result of all the consolidation was the elimination of dozens of long time, well known grocery chains; closing stores and creating food deserts in numerous neighborhoods. Employers cut wages and benefits, turning good full-time jobs in the stores to low wage part-time jobs, hurting workers and negatively impacting customer service.
For a momentary flash in history grocery industry workers were considered “Essential Workers “. The pandemic had ordinary people thinking about supply chain networks. Shortages of toilet paper, water and other essential items had everyone appreciating the good old days when you could go to a store and get what you wanted. Grocery workers are still essential workers.
The fight to keep those essential workers is going to intensify. The fight for good jobs, jobs that workers can survive on, noble jobs that are good for society. The coming years are going to prove to be challenging. So, today as we prepare to celebrate the 4th, give a thought to the people who do the work.
2. From A Grocery Clerk and Shop Steward.
By Kathleen Scott.
Kathleen Scott is a proud member of UFCW local 770, a steward at Albertsons, and charter member of the Stewards Social Club - a member-led gathering which aims to train and empower stewards and activist members. Her current focus is working with the Organizing Committee for EW4D, the UFCW reform caucus that aims to make UFCW International live up to the potential of its 1.5 million members.
I was 10 years old in 1976 and heading into one of the greatest summers of my life. The first half was spent here in my native LA, going to the beach, staying at both grandparents houses, going to theme parks with my cousins. The second half would be with my cousins in the woods just outside of Zanesville and we even had plans to go to the county fair.
It was the year of the bicentennial and flags were everywhere! Hanging from porches, in the background of ads, on murals, on t-shirts, and bandannas. The coolest kids wore American flag pants. Disneyland had an entire parade based on American history, they opened a new ride, America Sings! and the fireworks were primarily red white and blue. On Venice Beach, flag bikinis were all the rage and the stalls were full of tiny bits of patriotic cloth waving in the wind.
In rural Ohio it was the same. Every house, every shop, every park and truck stop on the highway was decked out in flags. My uncle had the same bumper sticker on both trucks “Happy Birthday America!” The rides at the county fair, the saddle clothes on horses, the backdrop of the stage. The pride and celebration was as much a part of that summer as sunburns and lightning bugs. All of my memories are colored by it.
It was also a time where grocery workers had good jobs. Damn good American jobs. Jobs that you had to know someone to get into. Jobs that bought houses, sent kids to college and ended in safe pensions. Cashiers were full time making the equivalent of 40 bucks an hour. Unions were an essential part of a worker’s life and a member’s quality of life reflected that.
Now, it’s 50 years later.
I’ll be spending this summer reminding myself that the smell of garbage isn’t my kitchen but the 85 million pounds of food rotting in the burnt warehouse 8 miles away.
Sure the grocery fliers have a flag for the Fourth of July, but we’re not even selling the tiny American flags that littered the ground everywhere in 1976. I haven’t seen a single bumper sticker and American flag apparel might make people in a lot of different targeted groups uncomfortable. In union stores we’ve got better wages and benefits than non-union. Our exploitation doesn’t compare to our fellow workers at Walmart and Target. But nobody is trying to get into grocery work.
This year, July 4th is merely a paid holiday, we’ll get time and a half if we have to show up. 10 years ago, it would have been morning crowds. Everyone heading to BBQs and fireworks after 2:00 PM but this year is different. Nobody has even mentioned the holiday. We’re all broke, overworked and scared of the next blow from an administration that feels as if it wants to kill us all.
Humans are herd animals, we’re happiest when we gather. Our built-ins for collective joy and pride - patriotism, hometowns, work, even holidays - are no longer such cohesive glue. A lot of our unions and locals are weak and need to be restructured, but more and more we’re seeing the members getting involved with that. This means that more and more we’re finding the sheer joy of camaraderie in union spaces. The flag no longer gives us a place to come together. Our unions do. Unions can be the place where it’s fun to be a part of something better.
3. FOOD CHAIN WORKERS DATA:
This report from the Food Chain Workers Alliance analyzes Bureau of Labor Statistics data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and Occupational Employment Statistics, Current Population Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s, Wage and Hour Compliance Action data.
Findings corroborate what we already know: food work is some of the most exploitative in the country. By basically any measure we looked at — from wages to food insecurity, injury rates, poverty rates, unionization levels and more— U.S. food workers fare worse than nearly all others.
(Perspectives are 100% our own and do not reflect sponsors.)
I loved this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!