No business as usual at Safeway
In a sign of growing community and labor
support for the 70,000 striking and locked-out Southern
California grocery workers, hundreds of people picketed the
entrances of the large Castro District Safeway in San Francisco
Jan. 24.
The main issue in the strike is health care for the workers.
Safeway has proposed a 50-percent cut in company contributions
to health-care benefits. That would amount to a jump in
workers' premiums to $5,000 out of an average annual wage of
$20,000.
The spirited Jan. 24 protest lasted five hours. Some 30
people took over the store, marching through the aisles with
signs and banners and chanting their support for the workers.
Many clerks stopped what they were doing to smile at the
disruption. Outside, strike supporters blocked the doors and
urged shoppers to go elsewhere.
Police eventually caught up to the protesters and detained
them inside the store. They were given written citations
without fines and let go one by one. It was clear that the
police did not want to attempt to remove the demonstrators from
the store through the hundreds of militant pickets waiting
outside.
The strike began Oct. 11. It is going through a critical
phase and needs continued support against the giant Safeway
chain, which saw a 91-percent increase in profits in the last
five years.
--Bill Hackwell
Reprinted from the Feb. 5, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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Email: ww@workers.org
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