One of the last things most of us who lived in San Diego or anywhere else in Southern California 16 years ago is talk of a grocery workers strike.
And yet the talk has heated up as union grocery store employees at Albertsons, Vons and Ralphs vote on whether to authorize a strike if their leadership decides to call one.
And all the talk stirs up memories of the very bitter and divisive grocery workers strike that began in the fall of 2003 and didn’t end for some four months.
A strike that involved 60,000 workers and remains the largest and longest supermarket strike in U.S. history.
A strike that led to thousands of jobs lost, billions of dollars lost and even friendships lost.
The strike was nasty with pro-union people pitted against anti-union people, with some fights even breaking out when picket lines were crossed and when temporary employees were hired, many of them high school kids.
A strike that led to the families of grocery workers having to go without paycheck after paycheck for months and during the long holiday season.
No one wants a repeat of that and business analysts say it is more unlikely now with the supermarket industry having changed a lot over the last 16 years.The major grocery store chains now have a much smaller share of the market with the Costco’s, Walmart’s, and Targets having become what they are,
So let’s hope the two sides can reach an agreement during the negotiations scheduled for next month and they remember what happened so it doesn’t happen again.
(Photo credit reporting partner 10News)