On the picket line

D.C. grocery workers may strike

Negotiations for a new contract for 25,000 grocery workers employed in 126 Giant and Safeway stores in Maryland, northern Virginia and the District of Columbia are going down to the wire, with the current contract set to expire at midnight on March 31. While exact terms cannot be discussed publicly, Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 has let it be known that the corporations are demanding stiff cutbacks and givebacks, though both are rolling in dough. In fact, Ahold, the Dutch company that owns Giant, reported that Ahold USA net sales increased 6.6 percent in 2011 to $25.1 billion, which is more than half the sales for all its European operations. Safeway CEO Steve Burd is being paid $11 million, which is more than 500 times the average employee wage. With talk of a strike in the air, both companies have chosen to play hard ball. Recently, they opened three storefront hiring halls next to Safeway stores to recruit and train “replacement workers.” Says UFCW Local 400 President Tom McNutt: “Management might think that setting up scab hiring halls right next to the stores where our members work will intimidate them into accepting a contract that puts the American dream far beyond their reach, but instead it’s had the opposite effect. We are more united than ever and more dedicated to doing whatever it takes to ensure that retail jobs in the Washington, D.C., area [provide for] health and retirement security.” If negotiations do not yield a decent contract by the March 31 deadline, a meeting where Local 400 members will take a strike vote has been scheduled for April 3. Stay tuned. (Union City, Metro Washington AFL-CIO Council online newsletter, Feb. 29, March 3 & 21)

FedEx to pay $3 million in bias suit

After the U.S. Department of Labor conducted a routine audit of FedEx’s employment practices (audits of all 200,000 federal contractors are conducted periodically), it found that FedEx discriminated in hiring on the basis of sex, race and national origin. Blacks, Latinos/as, Asian Americans and Native-American men and all women were rejected at higher percentages than white men. On March 21, the DOL announced that FedEx had agreed to pay a $3 million settlement to 21,635 job seekers at two dozen FedEx facilities in 15 states. In addition, FedEx agreed to institute widespread changes to correct its discriminatory hiring practices and to hire 1,703 of those rejected for jobs as part-time package handlers as positions become available. For instance, at the facility in Grove City, Ohio, the study found that 3,898 applicants were discriminated against. They will receive a total of $617,260 in back wages and 312 job offers. The New York Times quoted a professor of employment discrimination who observed that the settlement was “modest” in financial terms, but its “promise to revamp its hiring practices” was most important. (March 22)

ILWU Local 10 reaffirms May Day

Ever since 2005, International Longshore & Warehouse Workers Local 10, based in Oakland, Calif., has commemorated May Day, the international workers’ holiday inspired by labor’s struggle for the eight-hour workday. On Feb. 13, Local 10 passed a resolution reaffirming its commitment to May Day this year. The resolution noted that it’s especially important in 2012, given that labor is increasingly under attack; that state legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana have enacted or introduced so-called “right-to-work” laws; and that solidarity actions on behalf of the 99% are planned worldwide to challenge the 1%.

Wage gap narrows but it’s not good news

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the wage gap between what women earn and what men earn narrowed last year. While women earned on average 17.8 percent less than men (82 cents to the dollar), the reason isn’t a sign of progress. It’s because men’s wages have fallen further than women’s. While both sets of earnings declined since 2010, men’s real earnings declined by 2.1 percent while women’s declined by 0.9 percent. “Progress in closing the gender earnings gap has slowed considerably since the early 1990s,” notes IWPR. “If the pace of change in the annual earnings ratio continues at the same rate as it has since 1960, it will take another 45 years, until 2056, for men and women to reach parity.” That’s why the 99% must fight for full employment at equal living wages for all workers. (aflcio.org, March 12)