EVERETT – As grocery union representatives and the region’s four biggest supermarkets prepare for new negotiations, workers rallying in Everett on Tuesday said they won’t give up affordable health care benefits.
Union members also asked shoppers to sign pledges that they will not shop at Safeway, Albertsons, Fred Meyer or QFC if a strike or lockout occurs.
The latest contract extension for more than 16,000 workers in the Puget Sound area runs out Friday. The original contract ran out in early May.
“We stand today, tomorrow and forever in defense of our health care,” Diane Powe, a Safeway worker from Oakland, Calif., told a small crowd of cheering workers in front of the Safeway at Rucker Avenue and 41st Street on Tuesday afternoon.
Powe was one of several union members from the San Francisco Bay area who participated in the Everett rally and similar rallies and informational pickets in Puyallup and Ballard. She said workers in Northern California face contract talks later this year.
“We anticipate the same kind of struggle,” she said.
After talks broke down last year between union workers and supermarkets in Southern California , a 20-week strike ensued. In that case, as with the talks here, health benefits were a key issue.
Mike Hatfield, president of the United Food &Commercial Workers Local 44, said he doesn’t call the supermarket chains’ latest offer a realistic proposal. Instead, “it’s a demand to take away our affordable health care,” he said.
“For them, it’s dollars and sense,” Hatfield said. “For us, it’s life and death. That’s the difference.”
Andy Heyman of Everett, who works for Fred Meyer, said he needs good health benefits to take care of his young daughter, who has sickle-cell anemia and requires frequent hospital visits.
“I’m not going to let them take away my health care,” he said. “I’m not going to let them take away my career, which is a good career.”
Representatives for the negotiating supermarket chains couldn’t be reached Tuesday. They’ve maintained that they are offering a fair proposal under which the chains would absorb part of the increasing cost of health care benefits.
Hatfield said the unions representing local workers also are willing to share costs. But they are not willing to shoulder a huge portion of the cost and accept wage cuts for existing and new workers.
Mike Sells of the Snohomish County Labor Council, who attended Tuesday’s rally, said he’s watching the grocery workers talks carefully, since they could set the tone for other workers.
Hatfield said negotiations are scheduled Thursday and Friday. No strike vote has been set, and the contract has been extended several times already. But Hatfield wouldn’t speculate on whether the two sides will agree on a new contract soon.
“That will depend on the attitude of the employers,” he said. “We cannot compromise on health care.”
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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