Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/21/quote-anonymized-quote.html
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Solidarity with the workers.
(But if I had one of these in my neighborhood, I would always call it the Shop & Stop, every time, no matter how many times I was corrected.)
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Weird. On one hand it is cool there is detailed info supporting the effectiveness of the industrial action (retail action?). On the other hand… pervasive, invasive, commercial surveillance.
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The question is, what’s the record for the competitors they’ve started shopping at? I certainly applaud taking this stand for the workers but if the competition is the same isn’t it a wash in the long run?
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I usually shop at a nearby Stop and Shop, but not with the strike. Yesterday (Saturday) I drove by this store and the parking lot was pretty much empty; it actually might have been closed form the look of it.
More background on Stop and Shop as one of the last union supermarket chains in the area:
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In the short run, maybe. In the long run, if the strike causes change at one chain, it might start a wave where workers elsewhere follow suit.
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Maybe the management should have looked at what happened when Market Basket pissed off their workers a few years ago. And they were not even unionized.
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In Canada, Sobey’s bought up the Safeway brand and have begun closing stores to convert them to a new banner. They are firing everyone at Safeway (union) and will maybe rehire them at the new, non-union FreshCo.
They’re losing customers in two ways. One is the mere fact of being closed will send people elsewhere. The other is people like me who won’t set foot inside even later, thanks to their union busting. One of the towns they’re pulling this is my hometown which is very pro-union. I am far from the only person who has expressed this sentiment.
I would rather buy from a store that hasn’t been union from the start, than one specifically opened to break the union. UFCW may not be the rockstar of unions, but they do help prevent some of the most egregious abuses prevalent in the grocery biz.
Keep in mind, this is your food supply.
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“Gonna drive past the Stop & Shop with the radio on.”
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Skyhook describes the data it analyzed as “anonymized”
Perfect place for conspiracy mongering. I’ll bet Stop-n-Shop is building a dossier on each of us, so when the strike ends, they can round us up into FEMA camps.
“…goosing its profits at its workers’ expense, increasing their healthcare costs, reducing company pension contributions, and reducing holiday and Sunday overtime pay…”
Took them long enough to “catch up” to the aerospace industry. Now waiting for them to layoff key employees, then rehire them as lower-paid contract workers and stiff them on benefits.
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Skyhook found that the number of visits from “loyal customers” declined by 75% after the strike began
Being harassed and threatened by picketers probably has something to do with that. Who wants to return to her car with the tires mysteriously slashed?
Oh look, Ed’s here. Welcome Ed. Glad you’re going to help us set things straight with your appeals to fear based on unfounded allegations. Given how many strike workers have been outright killed over the last century and how many people who regular post here know that fact, I think your tired, worn out appeal to the “fear” of unions slashing tires is probably not going to work well here. Try Reddit, or maybe Twitter. I hear Facebook is still a hot dumpster fire for folks who want to make shit up.
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WCVB is reporting that the strike is over:
After the Teamsters announced that they would honor the UFCW picket lines, it was just a matter of time.
Stop and Shop is my grocery store of choice and it’s been frustrating to drive further and shop elsewhere. That said, I find this gentleman’s anti-union, chain loyalty a little over the top:
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I was a member of the UFCW from 1984 to 2000 when I left and did a complete career change.
They were still pretty strong when I first joined, but by the time I left were fairly toothless and didn’t quite have the community support they used to.
Was a time when that was absolutely a place where you could have a job with great pay and benefits at the journeyman level - most of the older guys that I worked with were family men solidly middle class with homes and kids they could put through college. This was in the Bay Area.
From what I understand, the top wages at this point are really no more than I was making in 2000. I don’t remember exactly how much that was at the time but around low 20’s an hour. Even at the turn of the 21st century, that wasn’t a lot in Silicon Valley. At this point, that’s a poverty wage there unless you bought a dwelling 25 years ago or something…
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You gotta stop before you can shop, silly.
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Burt Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a consumer research organization, said Sunday night that both labor and management were claiming victory, but he worried that both could suffer from the financial damage of an 11-day strike that effectively shut down the chain.
“Both sides are saying they’re winning. It could be a Pyrrhic victory,” he said. “We’ve never seen a strike this effective.”
He said union picket lines helped cut the number of shoppers by 75 to 90 percent, he said. And he said it could take a week to restock empty store shelves.
In the short run, Flickinger said consumers could be the winners if, as he expects, Stop & Shop runs a heavy promotional campaign with deep discounts. He said damage to the Dutch chain’s bottom line could be mitigated because the strike lasted less that two weeks and stores can reopen in time for the start of the heavy summer shopping season that begins with the Memorial Day weekend, he said.
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My favourite take on this:
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They got more than they would have if they didn’t strike.
The three-year agreement includes wage increases for all associates and maintains healthcare coverage
In this case, if management had provided this earlier, their bottom line would be better, now.
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Where we are near New Haven, we were fortunate. We had plenty of other options nearby (although I still would have driven further if need be to support the workers). In the city of New Haven, there are plenty of people who had no way to access other options. There were groups organizing transportation to other stores for those people who otherwise would have had no other option.
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