The grocery strikers must win their strike. First of all, because they have to win to protect their health care and that of their families in this dog-eat-dog society in which even medicine is treated as a commodity. And secondly because a defeat would be a disaster for working people all over California. Boeing, Disney, the large public and private universities, the film industry, the major hospitals, the shipping and trucking firms, and the various municipalities and counties would use such a defeat to attack the health care of their own workers, arguing that the wave of the future involved greater "flexibility" by working people in paying for their own health care.
A good case in point is the City of Long Beach, where the City Manager and one of his assistants have been visiting various City Departments and actually having the nerve to tell workers that they should void a rcently signed labor agreement so that the City can reduce their pay and slash their health benefits! An account of just one of these visits - in this case to the Library Services Department, appeared on this site a few weeks ago. They also have spoken openly to City workers of their plans to outsource many city jobs to private contractors in order to save money - in other words outsource them to slimeballs who exploit immigrant workers, many if not most of them undocumented, by paying them well below the level of a living wage and giving them virtually no benefits. The not so subtle threat was play along with us in our efforts to please the corporations by attacking the living standards of public employees or see your job go the same way. While city administration has never been a line of work famous for attracting towering intellects, none of the City's "managers" are so stupid as not to realize that contracting out = exploiting immigrant workers. The City plans to join in the exploitation.
One disgusting aspect of the whole situation is that Long Beach department heads have been openly siding with the City Manager against their own staffs -
exactly what one might expect from these low rent Alexis Karenins. They tremble at the prospect of the grocery strikers winning as a threat to their plan to please their bosses by convincing workers that reductions in their pay and benefits are inevitable. But the low intellectual and moral levels of these losers is not really the issue; if most of them got canned tomorrow they would be replaced immediately by similar toadies. The real issue is that the City of Long Beach, as well as other public and private employers, is counting on the defeat of the grocery strikers so that they can launch a similar attack on their own employees and unions. We must not let that happen. Support the grocery strikers in every possible way. Don't let some insect of a boss intimidate you and tell you that you can't mention the grocery strike at work.
An employee of the Long Beach Public Library told me yesterday that a library bureaucrat told him that the grocery strike must not be mentioned on the Library's email system, even in an effort ot inform other workers of alternative sources of information to the lies spewed out by City bureaucrats at a mandatory meeting that was held on City time. If you come across outrageous assaults on the First Amendment like this, publicize them to the best of your ability. Smoking these phonies out will reveal to their workers whose side "professional administrators" are on, and help them to realize that they and the grocery strikers are on the same side.

I went to Ralph's today, lot's of pickets out front, but I couldn't understand them. I think they were speaking Spanish (?). So I thought I'd take a sneak peek inside to see what the facist scabs and republican shoppers were doing, and maybe spit on the produce (hehe).

Dou you know they were selling a gallon of orange juice for 50 cents! What's up with that? REPRESSION! I thought. Then I see milk for 50 cents, too! And 24 pepsis for like 2 dollars! THEY ARE DUMPING! Then I see sausage, 99 cents a pound. Man, I was a vegan for 3 years, but since labor day, I'm a bbq & beer dude big time. Anyway, by the time i got outta there, I got like 80 dollars worh of goods for 27 dollars, plus a coupon for 5 dollars off next time I go. LIKE THERE WILL BE A NEXT TIME, FACIST REPRESSORS!

I doubt they will win the strike. The southern CA unions are hereby ignored by the chains. The corporations have no intention of negotiating ever. They don't care as long as the union is busted.

error

take 2

Sure hope you don't choke on any of that scab food. Why don't you make some smart remarks to strikers about the way they speak - in person? The results might be interesting.

Here's how to get by the strikers w/out any hassle. Dress down, like in the clothes you work in the yard in. If they confront you, tell them that you would like to support their strike, but that you are too poor to catch a cab or a bus to another store, you have to walk from your house or you had to borrow a neighbor's car and this is the only grocery store you an afford to go to and you need to buy food for your spouse and 5 children, three of which are sick and in need of medical attention but you're doing all you can with what little you have. They won't mess with you no more.

I find it really interseting that you Union goons think the public should shop at non union store until you "strong arm" your Employer into conceding to your demands. Then the public should shop at your stores that will have higher prices due to the increased cost of keeping your sorry asse's employed. MMMMMM love that scab food!

I guess that you didn't notice that the employers are making the demands, not the workers.

yes the stock price shows the down turn in the "paper value" of the stock. Just wait when the stores don't have to pay those high wages watch the price then. Hey some good advice buy the stock now when its low and then in future you'll make some money. Hey also let your strike buddies know this as well.

Geoff, you're and idiot.