(The Working Families e-Activist Network issued the following Action Alert on January 26.)
Dear Working Families e-Activist:
Since mid-October, 70,000 grocery workers have courageously kept up the picket lines in Southern California. These brave workers are holding the line for health care and good jobs in the face of stubborn employer greed. The stand they have taken is not just for their own families, but for all families, at a time when too many employers are shredding the standards for decent benefits we worked long and hard to build. They’re on strike or have been locked out by their employers, including Kroger-owned Ralphs, Safeway-owned Vons and Albertsons for nearly four months now.
That is a very long time for these workers and their families to go without their regular paycheck or health care coverage. They need your help.
REQUESTED ACTION
Normally we’d ask you to click on a link to help. Today we need something different. We’re asking you to change your everyday routine and not shop at Kroger or Kroger-owned stores during the strike. The striking grocery workers are asking you to do this because the company that owns Kroger is stubbornly refusing to negotiate a reasonable contract. We all need to vote with our shopping choices and tell these giant grocery corporations that their actions are unacceptable and we will not support them with our business.
Please don’t shop at Kroger and help get the word out by forwarding this e-mail to your friends, family and co-workers.
These workers feel their struggle is essential to the well-being and future of their families. Maria Lopez, a five-year employee of one of the grocery stores, had this to say about the strike. “I’ve been out there [on the picket line] for 40 hours a week because I’m fighting for my health benefits. There are a lot of moms on the line. We are afraid to lose our jobs with this strike but more afraid to lose our health benefits if the company gets its way. If one of my kids gets really sick and I couldn’t afford the insurance, I wouldn’t know what to do.”
By clicking on the link below you also can donate to a special strike fund set up to help these workers. Some workers are in dire straits-especially if somebody in the family is sick.
https://secure.ga3.org/08/holdtheline
Why is this strike so important? The grocery chains are demanding the workers accept what amounts to a 75 percent cut in health coverage for new workers and a 50 percent cut for current employees. Like too many employers across America, they are trying to boost their profits at the expense of workers and their families. If the grocery chains win, we’ll all have a harder time holding on to health care benefits. The workers must win.
Learn more about the grocery strike on the AFL-CIO website by clicking on the link below.
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/M1qfqv11-dti/
Visit the website of the United Food and Commercial Workers.
http://www.ufcw.org/