Quote:
Originally Posted by Dion
I was one of the lifers. I thought the strike was an insanely stupid idea as we were very well paid for what we did. I ended up working with a friend of the family while the strike went on and took a little vacation. Quit a year afterwards.
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I worked at Safeway from 2001-2006 as I went to High School and University. I started at courtesy clerk and worked my way to cashier and then to customer service supervisor. While I was there, the CBA went up for renewal and we had to vote on the company's offer. I remembered how the lifer's were all against it and wanted to go on strike while the people like me just wanted to continue working because ultimately it wasn't our career or battle.
I can honestly see both sides of the coin. I think the UFCW had won pretty good wages for its employees in the 1980s where there wasn't much competition in the grocery industry (pretty much a two store race between CO-OP and Safeway) and therefore the company was able to pay $20/hour (In 1980s dollars) for what amounted to low-skilled work.
This probably lured a lot of people into trying to make a career out of stocking shelves or cashing. When the competition increased in the 90s and 2000s, as a business Safeway had to rely more on employees like me who worked 24-30 hours a week at less than top rate and with less benefits. The reality of the business changed but yet there were legions of lifers who were at stages in their life where they couldn't easily re-train and do something else so they were prepared to dig in and fight for every nickel with the union cheerleading them the whole way.
I remember convincing a 10 year employee at this time that the reality of the industry was that their wages/benefits/pensions would be stagnate and be ground down overtime by inflation and to take that moment (2004-2005 Calgary economy was red hot) to find a new career while they still could. She ended up being an office manager somewhere making double her cashier wages with good benefits. She was lucky, but there were plenty of broken down old grocery clerks who really couldn't do anything else.