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# Strike that! Now we’re all paying price for impasse
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/strike-that-now-were-all-paying-price-for-impasse/
- Published: 2004-01-30T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:42:11.000Z
- Author: Bill Bauer
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

The supermarket strike has been very frustrating for all of us. I feel for the supermarket workers. They’ve been either locked out or on strike for going on four months.

The major markets themselves — Ralphs, Vons/Pavilions and Albertsons — have lost hundreds of millions of dollars. And, we all have been inconvenienced, paid more for groceries and in the end, will suffer the most.

What’s obvious is the terrible miscalculation by the leaders of the 70,000-member United Food and Commercial Workers Union whose many members are either striking or have been locked out of the three major Southland grocery chains. Their leadership’s strategic blunders have turned this into an unmitigated disaster for all concerned.

Last October, the major issue was health benefits. While most industries have either dramatically cut health benefits or required employees to co-pay, the UFCW bosses thought they could buck the trend. It was a serious misfire.

Most of us respectfully headed to the health food stores, drug stores and local neighborhood markets anyway. I shopped at the Pico and Brentwood farmers’ markets for fruits and veggies. Sodas, snacks and hard goods were purchased at drug chains including Save-on, owned by Albertsons.

I hit independents like The Farms on Montana Avenue and Bob’s Market on Ocean Park Boulevard. What had been “one-stop shopping” has become “four-and five-stop shopping.” I noticed right away that my grocery bill was 15 to 25 percent higher.

As a goodwill gesture for us experiencing supermarket withdrawal, the union stopped picketing Ralphs and said, “Shop there, instead.” From a marketing standpoint, this was another stupid mistake. The last thing you want is customers going to a rival store. They might like it and not come back, which means you reduce overhead by permanently laying off workers.

Higher grocery bills are bad enough but listening to picketers on television newscasts describe how they make ends meet by shopping at non-union Wal-Marts and Costco was insulting.

Recently, the LA Times and other newspapers reported that grocery workers are scabbing and going back to work at non-union stores, or at the same chains they’re supposed to be striking. I can’t blame them, they have bills to pay and mouths to feed, too.

After three months, I decided to cross the picket line. I found that fruit medley cups had gone from $2.50 to $3.99\. Twelve packs of diet soda had risen from $3 to $4.99\. I couldn’t find favorite cold-cuts and basics such as some produce, chicken and various meats.

Prices in the major supermarkets have risen dramatically since the strike, I guess because management feels that “low prices” will not entice shoppers to cross picket lines. But you can bet no matter how or when the strike is settled, permanently higher prices for food at all supermarkets are inevitable.

This will lead to even more defections to Wal-Mart, Target and Costco. After the strike, I’ll probably continue buying produce at the farmers markets, which means dollars will no longer be spent at Albertsons.

The UFCW has been attacking Safeway (owner of Vons and Pavilions) CEO Steven A. Burd, who earned $1.26 million in salary and bonus in 2002 and another $15 million since August by cashing in stock options.

Rick Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770 was quoted in the Monday, Jan. 26 LA Times as saying, “It is obscene to reward executives with fat bonuses when more than 20,000 employees have given up their own paychecks.” The very same Icaza earned $273,404 in 2002 — about $25,000 more than John Sweeney, the national president of the AFL-CIO.

The LA Times reports that UFCW international president Douglas Dority was paid $329,792, making him the highest paid president among the AFL-CIO’s 64 member unions in 2002\. The chains with their deep pockets are in it for the long run and grocery workers will never make up the losses even if this ends tomorrow. Signs are that this could drag on for many more months especially if “big labor” joins in and plays hard ball by invoking the “union busting” war cry.

Meanwhile, corporate executives and union bosses will still collect big salaries and fat expense accounts.

For all the rest of us victims, it’s a no-win nightmare. (Bill Bauer is hungry and irritable. He’s a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer).

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 30, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/013004.pdf?ref=smdp.com)