Grocery Update: Every Clerk Can Govern #2.
Shop Steward Kathleen Scott On Staffing, Store Conditions and Weingarten Rights.
Every Clerk Can Govern, #2.
Every Clerk Can Govern is an ongoing, long form interview/oral history series in the spirit of Studs Terkel, CLR James and Staughton Lynd, featuring the essential workers and change makers in the grocery industry who are showing what true democracy looks like.
Discontents: 1. Grocery Store Workers March for Contracts That Provides Sufficient Staffing, Fair Wages And Benefits. 2. Faith Leaders Walk The "Stations Of The Workers’ Cross" With El Super Workers Ahead Of Contract Talks. 3. Shop Steward Kathleen Scott On Staffing, Store Conditions and Weingarten Rights.
1. Grocery Store Workers March for Contracts That Provides Sufficient Staffing, Fair Wages And Benefits.
On Tuesday, April 15, over 300 grocery store workers represented by seven California UFCW local unions marched from Vons to Stater Bros. in La Verne to show their employers they’re ready to fight for fair wages, secure health benefits, reliable retirement plans and adequate hours and staffing levels, ensuring employees’ well-being and a good shopping experience for customers.
“Even just 20-30 years ago, a job at the grocery store was an entry into the middle class and grocery workers could afford to live, raise a family and save for retirement,” said Mark Ramos, president, UFCW Local 1428. “However, working conditions for grocery workers have declined rapidly over the past 20 years and grocery companies are trying everything they can to make executives and Wall Street investors rich. That’s why grocery workers across Southern California are rising up and showing that they’re ready to do what it takes to get the contracts they deserve.”
Grocery workers from across Southern California are fighting for a fair contract from their employers Kroger (Ralphs in Southern California), Albertsons (who also owns Vons and Pavilions), and Stater Bros. Their contract campaign comes at a time when grocery companies are trying everything to make a buck on the backs of workers. Staffing has been reduced to unsafe levels, stores are relying on self-checkout machines and are looking into other ways to maximize their profits, while avoiding paying the labor costs needed to give customers an excellent shopping experience. This practice of chronic understaffing leaves workers overworked and vulnerable to violence, affecting the shopping experience for consumers and the public.
“Stater Bros. is doing everything it can to take away our benefits and blame the union for it,” said Michelle Diaz, a service deli clerk at Stater Bros. and member of UFCW Local 1428. “We have to join together to fight to protect our health care. We have to protect our retirement.”
Seven UFCW California locals represent over 65,000 grocery workers across Central and Southern California, making up the largest union grocery contract in the nation. These workers are employed at Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions, Stater Bros., Gelson’s and Super A stores. The locals involved include UFCW Locals 8GS, 135, 324, 770, 1167, 1428, and 1442, spanning from Central California to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I know everyone here today is also here to fight for their families and their futures,” said Marcos Dihernan, a cashier at Albertsons and a member of UFCW Local 1428. “We need to have living wages, staffing to ensure our stores run properly, health benefits that we can count on if we get sick and a secure retirement.”
Kroger spent over $1 billion since 2022 on the unsuccessful merger with Albertsons. That price tag will increase as the two companies continue to fight in court. They also initiated a $7.5 billion stock buyback following the failed Kroger-Albertsons merger. Instead of enriching CEOs and shareholders with stock buybacks, Kroger could spend $7.5 billion to:
Open 280 new stores
Remodel 3,269 stores
Offer $158.17 in discounts to every loyal household
Hire 125,723 new full-time employees (46 per store)
Grocery Workers Rising is 65,000 essential grocery workers rising up for what they deserve. Visit the campaign at www.groceryworkersrising.org. Their current contract expired on Sunday, March 2, 2025. These 65,000 grocery workers across Southern California are rising up and fighting for:
Living wages
Affordable healthcare benefits
A reliable pension
More staffing and better working conditions for a better customer experience
2. Faith Leaders Walk The "Stations Of The Workers’ Cross" With El Super Workers Ahead Of Contract Talks.
On Good Friday, April 18, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) members from El Super joined the LA Catholic community, members of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), and Immaculate Heart Community in a powerful “Stations of the Worker’s Cross” –commemorating the Passion of Christ, and exploring how it resonates with workers’ struggles for fair pay and safe staffing in Southern California. The procession took place in front of an El Super store in South Los Angeles.
The Stations of the Cross came just two days after the contract covering approximately 600 El Super workers in Southern California expired (April 16) and a few days before critical negotiations begin with Chedraui USA (April 28-29). The procession took place ahead of a busy Easter weekend for El Super workers, in a time where grocery store corporations have raked in record profits, while their workers struggle to afford housing and to put food on the table.
This symbolic action in the Christian tradition enacted key moments in Jesus’ journey to the cross. Participants related Jesus’ last moments to the struggles faced by essential grocery workers today. The Stations displayed the challenges El Super workers face amid a larger movement by grocery store workers for adequate staffing levels, wages that account for the rising cost of living, access to healthcare, pension plans that allow workers to retire with dignity, and the promotion of a higher standard for all El Super workers otherwise treated as expendable and replaceable.
CLUE Executive Director, Jennifer Gutierrez said, “Just as Jesus was seen as a threat to the powerful in his time, the workers at El Super have more power than they know. They are essential workers that deserve our respect, in addition to a fair wage and benefits.”
“El Super is failing workers and customers by prioritizing profits over people," said Araceli Pinedo, a cashier at El Super on Vermont and Slauson in Los Angeles who spoke at one of the Stations of the Workers’ Cross. "When an elderly woman faints in line from waiting too long, or when cashiers are forced to close the store alone at 11 PM, it’s clear: this company’s greed is endangering our safety and dignity. We demand enough staff to protect workers and customers, fair hours, and respect—because we are the ones who make this business successful.”
“We’re forced to work with broken equipment that causes injuries, stand on worn-out mats until our legs swell, and face daily safety risks—all while the company ignores these hazards," said Xiomara Romero, who works at the same El Super store in Los Angeles. Enough is enough. We demand safe equipment, fair staffing, and respect. El Super’s success depends on us; it’s time they act like it.”
“After 16 years at El Super, I've seen how understaffing hurts both workers and customers," said Daniel Marín, a meat clerk in Los Angeles. "We're ready to negotiate in good faith - and we expect the same from El Super. No more delays. We need fair wages, stable schedules, safe staffing levels, and respect now. When workers win, the company and our customers win too."
About CLUE: Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) educates, organizes, and mobilizes religious leaders and community members to walk with low-wage workers, immigrants, and communities of color while advocating for dignity, fair work, and healthy communities.
About El Super workers: Approximately 600 Union workers –predominantly Latino employees working at El Super –owned by Chedraui USA, are represented by UFCW Locals 324, 770, 1167, and 1428 in Southern California.
El Super workers are part of Grocery Workers Rising –a larger movement of over 65,000 UFCW members across Southern California fighting for living wages, full time hours, safe staffing, and secure benefits. While grocery corporations profit, grocery store workers struggle to afford the basics in high-cost California.
3. Grocery Workers Rising Campaign.
Shop Steward Kathleen Scott On Staffing, Store Conditions and Weingarten Rights.
Errol: What is your latest role? It has been a couple years since we last checked in.
Kathleen Scott: Basically, I do all of the shopping for somebody. They make an order online, I shop it, we send it out to them in the parking lot. Lately, they've added this thing where we do the shopping and then DoorDash delivers it to them. Because, of course, they fired all of the drivers that were union members, and now they let DoorDash people do it, even though all of our negative reviews come from groceries that were delivered by DoorDash or Instacart. So you know, that's a real good business choice!
I am actually the lead, which means that I have to train people to do this job as well as be the one to go into other departments and say, oh my gosh, we're totally slammed. And can you just stop everything you're doing and run around and grab groceries, please and thank you. Yeah, so that's where I'm at and what I'm doing.
Errol: What’s it like working at Albertsons now that their big merger with Kroger has fallen through, not only that, but Albertsons and Kroger and even C&S are taking turns suing each other over whose fault it is the merger failed.
Kathleen Scott: Yeah, they're having a fun little pissy slap fight, right? Well, of course, they've dramatically cut hours because they lost a bunch of money that never existed in the merger, right? It's all pretend money because they were going to pay but only if this worked. And anyway, apparently Albertsons went behind Kroger's back with C&S.
And, yeah, it's a mess, but mostly it comes down to they want money, and the only way they know how to make money is to cut our hours. And so we've had insane staffing problems. And remember, while I'm telling you this, I work at a smaller Albertsons. Okay, Albertsons has cut staffing by about 10% and we're talking pre-COVID levels. So it's not like it jacked up for COVID and then it went down. No, this is 2019 versus now, Albertsons is about 10%, if you talk to somebody from a Kroger store, like a Ralph's right, it's 30%, so simultaneously, they've added departments like mine that are intensely labor intensive.
Okay, normally, if you're buying $100 worth of groceries, it's going to take the time that it takes to get those groceries from the warehouse to the store, put them on the shelf, and you know, the customer picks it. You run it through a checkout line, that's all of the labor that's necessary for that $100 for me, I have to pick it, of course, and because we're short staffed, it isn't often on the shelf. If there's a yogurt that they want and it's not staffed, that means it is in the deli case, on a pallet, and I have to go in, tear apart a pallet, tear open a box, grab a single Chobani and go back out.
Because we are judged by metrics. Everything is by metrics, and according to the store, as long as you meet those metrics, you don't need any more time. And every single store has ways that they juke this system, right? For example, with our out of stocks, right? If you have too many out of stocks, the metrics are bad. The store director comes in and goes, so what we do is, if they order a 15 ounce yogurt, and we don't have it, we just replace it with a 30 ounce yogurt, because nobody's going to complain. They get more yogurt, right? But this throws off their system, because now inventory is now done with this thing which counts everything they have every day, right? It does not work, and it's very, very time consuming. It's another time consuming thing that they've added while they cut hours. So basically, every time I game the system, every time I cheat a little bit so that the metrics are good, they cut the hours for my department.
My department is currently doing 100% better than it was doing a year ago, right? I took it over about a year and a half ago, and it was doing bad, and then I got it up. We're doing so much better. We have 20 less hours a week. Instead of having 130 hours, I have 109 hours to divide up, like over all my people for seven days. It's insanity. So a lot of the job is getting done by people from other departments, front end, managers, courtesy clerks, who also have their own jobs to do with less hours. It's insanity, and of course, it's having a really bad effect on customer service, because every time I drag a courtesy clerk away to shop or to take orders out, he's not bagging, right? And if he's not bagging, then the cashier is going more slowly, which means the lines are getting longer and the customers are getting more frustrated.
But we were told directly that we're not worried about lines in a grocery store anymore. That is no longer a priority. I don't know how they expect to run this business, and it feels as if they're trying to find the point where the store breaks, where it just does not function, and then maybe they'll add 10% back from there. So yeah, it's bizarre.
Errol: This reminds me of a recent study that came out from the RAND Corporation. And one thing they just calculated that since 1979 the gap between labor and productivity is around $79 trillion in wealth that's been siphoned away from American workers, to the tune at this point of close to three and a half trillion dollars a year that since 1979 the productivity of American workers has just skyrocketed. But what you're talking about, that's a lot of what I experienced in my time at retail, of always making you do more with less, and you guys are doing 100% better than you were a year ago or so, and that is your increase in productivity. Yet here we are also talking about understaffing, and this is a case in point of that difference between labor and productivity and where they're siphoning off wealth and profit from you guys.
Kathleen Scott: Well, obviously it's working. It's working for their shareholders. By their metrics, it's working, but by the metrics of a functioning retail store, yeah, it's not working at all. Like, at all, like we have unhappy customers. We are starting to fail our EcoLab.
EcoLab is the company that comes in and they check and they make sure that there's food safety and there's customer safety and there's employee safety. So food safety in the deli is your chicken kept to a temperature that's not going to grow botulism. Is your macaroni salad not going to kill somebody's grandma. Is there a slip and fall area? Is there ice on the floor right outside the freezer that you could, you know, slip, fall, crack your head open? Fire hydrants work? I mean, all the safety stuff, and they go through, and they mark off, and if you pass, you get a green. We got yellow last time. And this store is small. We have a very good safety captain, and so many of our employees are long timers that they know what to do, right. And we also get a little bit of a heads up when they're showing up, because they always do the front end first, which means everybody runs around like crazy in their departments and fixes things. I mean, that's just the way it is, right? So if you're getting a yellow when people have a warning, this means that people don't have time.
And what happened, like in deli, is they knew there was some stuff they had to clean up. They were so busy with customers, even knowing that EcoLab was there, they couldn't get away with it, and this happened all over the store. So if we're failing safety right, and we're failing to make our customers happy, because we've been getting a lot of complaints, and I'm like, hey, you know, there's a little 800 number on your seat, can just call corporate and be honest, right? We're obviously failing our employees, because if you're cutting wages dramatically, that means people's paychecks are being cut dramatically, and that adds stress, and we're seeing a lot of burnout. We're seeing a lot of call outs. We're seeing a lot of no call, no shows. We've had an insane amount of people quit. Like, in the last two months, five people have quit. There's only 80 people in my store. And they all quit because they couldn't get any hours. And, keep in mind, I'm in a good store. I'm lucky I'm not at a Kroger.
So basically, our store can still function. I think a lot of us are looking back to the good old days of COVID because we were making an extra five bucks an hour, and we knew COVID was finite. So what we were experiencing in the moment would end at some point. This will not.
This is how they want to do business going forward.
And then you combine that with this new administration, and people are like, is this our new normal? And that is more debilitating and exhausting than a temporary emergency that goes on for too long and you don't even have that sort of chaos party going on that you're all in together. You don't even have the luxury of that.
Errol: How do you and your co-workers feel about the current administration's labor policies, particularly trying to blow up the National Labor Relations Board, all these layoffs of public service work, working so closely with these union busting billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. What's the vibe?
Kathleen Scott: It's weird. It's either 100% head in the sand. Don't want to talk about it, right? And then half of them are like, what is happening, the overall mood, of course, is that we are completely abandoned, completely forgotten and utterly being dismissed, right? And then it hit our bargaining committee. We have a mediator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliatory Services, and he's been with us for a while, and he is just an absolute sweetheart, but he's also a very fair mediator, right? He mediates. He's not taking sides, although I think both sides feel like he's a little bit on their side, because he's just such a nice guy, right?
He got laid off. Oh, there's only about 2000 people in this office, because the only thing this office does is mediate between companies and unions during contracts. That's it, right? So they only had about 2000 of them, and they laid off all but 12 because, you know, you can't legally close offices anymore.
We went in on a Tuesday. There he was, mediating. We go in on Wednesday, and he's gone. He's laid off. He no longer has a job, which is crazy. His daughter was born during our last contract, right? Some of the people who'd been on the previous contract committee were like, how's your daughter? And he was showing pictures. So we know him, and we know that he has a three year old kid, and we know that he's out of work. Fortunately, the company and the Union came to an agreement where they would split paying him freelance to continue to mediate, because he knows the case so well. He's been the mediator between us and the companies for so long that he was the natural choice if we were going to bring in a mediator. And I am glad for him that we're able to give him a job for a little while, and seeing how long this negotiation is probably going to go on, it might tide him over until he finds another job.
But it hit us personally, like it was our friend who got laid off. And so I tell that story around. And like most people, I had no idea that there was a Federal Office of Mediation for unions. So, like, what did they ever do to anybody?
Errol: That's why I think they've been able to do these federal layoffs so easily, because I don't think a lot of people know what public service agencies do, and there's always so much negativity, not the fact they are working for us.
Kathleen Scott: Yeah. And, I mean, there's always going to be bad employees. My store has a guy who is so lazy he makes work for other people while he's trying to avoid work, right? That happens, and our new store director made him employee of the month, because he's an ass kisser. Which is great, because I've been telling everybody, like, stop killing yourself. I can just say, hey, look, work as hard as him. Work as hard as him in order to be valued at this company.
When I tell people what's going on with the National Labor Relations Board, they feel like, you know, are we going to be able to strike? Are we going to be able to do grievances? And I'm like, I don't know, you know.
But then I remind them that the National Labor Relations Board was not set up to protect us, the workers. It was set up to protect them from us, the National Labor Relations Board was set up for that, and to hobble us in a lot of ways. We can't have a national strike because of them. They seem to want to go backwards in time. If they want to go that far back, I'm game at this point, me and a bunch of other grocery workers have nothing to lose. I think that the current administration is adding a very spicy sauce to this feeling that we are completely undervalued and dehumanized.
Errol: What are you demanding? What are you asking for in this current campaign around understaffing?
Kathleen Scott: Well, we've made staffing the pivotal point of our bargaining because what's the use of getting more money if you get less hours? So now your paycheck is exactly the same, but you're doing the work of four people. Nobody wants that, and we've already done it. So no, the company has told us, with a straight face, that they talked to their people and they don't see staffing as an issue, and they will not talk about it. There's no problem. And the person who said that, again, with a straight face, is the vice president of Labor Relations at Albertsons. It is his office that is leading the cuts in labor, right? Like he knows what's happening, and we're like, we just gave you a lot of proof and a really, really beautiful presentation by economist John Marshall. We had pictures from our stores, we had videos of people who'd been waiting for a half an hour in a Kroger line, etc., and they said, Oh, well, you know, that's just anecdotal. We need some concrete facts. Yeah, so I think we might be at the point where, no, we're not going to play your little gaslighting game, where nothing we say is proof.
So staffing is a main one. The other one is that they haven't looked at our pension fund, like looking toward increasing it. We don't have a cost of living raise in our pension fund, and it hasn't been addressed since 2003 so, yeah, that's gotten very important. I mean, we're always going to fight for money. Basically, with the last contract, we made some really strong steps toward getting grocery jobs back to being decent employment. I mean, they used to be great when I first got into it. Everybody was like, Yay, you know, cashiers make 20 bucks an hour. Well, yeah, that was like, 18 years ago, and they're still making close to 20 bucks an hour, right? Except now they don't have baggers, because the baggers are now in my department, so they got to do everything themselves. So staffing, pensions and money is our primary focus.
There's some other little things we'd like to get, but those are the three that we are going to and staffing, at this point, that's our line in the sand. Unfortunately, it's also their line in the sand. So this could get ugly.
Errol: What is your role as a shop steward?
Kathleen Scott: A shop steward is a volunteer position in which a member is the representation of the union in the store. Now, there's a lot of things we can't do. You know, if we want to file a grievance, we have to do it through the union. If we want to do an audit to make sure that they aren't using baggers in higher paid positions, they're only allowed to use them for 15% of all store hours, and so if they're using them for more, we do a store audit. But if somebody has a grievance, we can go in as a steward, like on our last contract, we won the right to 28 hours minimum a week. So if somebody who doesn't have any restrictions gets 26 hours, I can go in as a shop steward and say, look, you know, they have to get 28 hours. How are we going to fix this? And then they'll find a place where they can stay later or come in earlier, that sort of thing.
So basically, I am like a union rep with a little less power, but I am protected. So as a steward, when I am acting in the capacity as a steward, I am equal to anyone in the store, including the store director. So, my speech is protected. I mean, I can't go in there and say exactly what's on my mind when I'm upset, for example, but if I go in and I say, you are doing this wrong, I cannot be written up for insubordination. I'm a steward. It's my job to do that.
My other duties include keeping people updated with what's going on in our union, letting people know what's going on with contract negotiations, even if I'm not on the board, letting people know that, hey, we've got a Zoom meeting coming up on the quarterly one to keep updated on stuff. Just as I am the face of the union within the store, and I'm one of two, I'm the secondary steward. The primary steward is a guy who's been a steward for 22 years. Knows the contract inside and out, right? So if you have a contract question, you go to him, should I file a grievance on this? What are my hours? If you want to know about stuff like, what's going on with the contract? What's going on with bargaining? He's the brains, I'm the mouth, right? And it's the most perfect relationship because he's in the meat department, so he doesn't get out on the floor much. I'm shopping all day. I'm there in your face every day if you need to talk about something. So that's a really good teamwork thing we've got going on there.
Errol: What are Weingarten rights and how do shop stewards work with them?
Kathleen Scott: Those are your federal right to have union representation with you if you think that anything that's going to happen is going to impact your job, if you're going to be disciplined, right? So like lately at Kroger stores, they've had these secret shoppers, and if you get caught not smiling or whatever, you're supposed to go into the office and one of them mucky mucks comes on a Zoom call and talks to you about your attitude. Now you should have union representation in the room with you, because that can affect your position.
So if someone is being disciplined, I'm there. I can't stop them from get being disciplined, but I can take notes on everything that's said. So if it's a he said, she said, situation right now, if there’s not a witness, I'm there. If somebody is getting written up for being late, for example, they're probably still going to get that write up for being late. But if this is the first time they've been late, and everybody else in the store is late all the time and never gets written up, I'm there. I can make note of that, so if they try to use that write up to fire him, I can make a note of that and I can probably get them their job back.
To be alone with the bosses when you're being disciplined means that you have no control over the dialog, and you have no control over the outcome, because everything comes down to a he said, she said, so you want your steward there with you, or your union rep if they have time to come down.
I think it's weird, in every union, you have your union guys, gals like me, who's like, I want to be a steward. I want a volunteer position with more responsibility, where I get to listen to people bitch. It's awesome, right? And so I'm gonna know what a Weingarten right is. Because I see the union as labor power, right. I don't see the union as me. I see the Union as a large collective that makes the world better. So yeah, I'm gonna know what a Weingarten right is. But like the guy stocking shelves, I've explained it to him seven times. never go in that office alone. He's not going to know. So your diehards are all about the union rights.
See, I'm a union girly. So my vision for my workplace is honestly more about my union than my workplace. For my workplace, what I want is the usual, a job with dignity, fair pay. I want them to care as much about their own damn stores as we do. It's very frustrating to be the person who wants to make your customers happy and you're getting the bonuses and we're getting shafted. I would rather not do that, but yeah, as a steward, my job is wrapped up with the power that labor has to take collective action to make change, right? And without that, this job would be Walmart. It would be horrible, right? And we're not going to see in my lifetime the most exploited workers in America get many gains unless they come join us, and then, you know, we can talk. But for now, they are so incredibly exploited. And the reason that I am less exploited than a Walmart worker is because I have a union, and especially during this administration, unions are all that labor has for power.
But if we can do more collective bargaining across locals, and right now, 770 in Los Angeles, 3000 up in Seattle, Las Vegas, Nevada, Colorado, all of our locals, our contracts are ending at the same time. If we could coordinate our direct action, we would really have a much better chance at making the CEOs poop they're very expensive trousers, right? And so I see my job as, how do I invigorate community spirit within it? And that's honestly the only reason I can keep working this job, because otherwise I would just quit, I'd go find anything and just pay for my health insurance, right? Like without the union, I literally could not do this.
I think at this time we need, a lot more solidarity across unions, not just across locals. We need a lot more education out there about what unions can do. Like, if I could talk to every customer who's come in and be like, Oh, I'm glad you're here. You're my favorite. Like, can you just start having our backs? Start calling corporate when the lines are long, start getting loud. I mean, we're going to be as loud as we can during these contracts, but after the contracts, we're gonna get what we get. And until customers start complaining about what they are experiencing, nothing's gonna change. And I mean, even then it might not, like all they care about is their $7.8 billion buybacks. That is their only goal at this point. I don't even think they're actually in the grocery industry anymore. Like, maybe they're just in the sell your information industry, and that makes more money than actually selling the groceries. I don't know.
So I know that customers don't want to complain because they think it reflects badly on us, right? They don't want to say the line was long because that means their favorite cashier wasn't fast enough. But things aren't going to change until the general public starts getting mad about what they're expected to go through just to have groceries.
My store has an Instagram fan page. It's called Los Feliz Albertsons. We have no idea who's running it. And basically they make food jokes, and sometimes they'll make a joke about like, how the cashiers treat the courtesy clerks, right? And it's very light hearted, and I have no idea who is running this, okay? But it seemed to me that it was a younger couple, not quite Gen Z, right? And they would go to the grocery store, and they would see something that got their fancy, and they'd take a picture of it, and they'd go post it on their Los Feliz Albertsons page, and it is more of like a Los Feliz community page that's centered around the grocery store, right? And they were going gangbusters during COVID. Like we were the only thing that was open.
In the last seven, eight months, and you can go look it up, they haven't posted, I think that they are not having a good time shopping at our store anymore, and they don't have that good vibe when they go to their favorite neighborhood store. They wait in a line that's too long, the peanut butter they wanted to buy, or the peanut butter they wanted to make fun of, is not on the shelf because it wasn't stocked. Things are just a little grubbier. The people who work there are not as friendly, they're not as funny, and they've lost interest. And to me, that kind of says more than everything else, is that this little fan page that absolutely loved us, absolutely loved shopping at us, because you can tell they were going in there like four times a week, they just kind of don't care anymore. We're not special, and that makes me sad.
John Marshall called it the retail spiral of death. You cut labor because you want to save money, but then you have less sales, so you cut more labor, and then it's nothing. It just spirals into nothing.
peace.