But if you don’t stop shopping, you’ll never leave the store! That wouldn’t be convenient at all, to be stuck in a nightmare loop of endless shopping.
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Worth it, just to mess up the averages for the tracking system. You can’t calculate the length of my visit if I never leave!
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This is me. I am a regular Stop & Shop customer, and since the strike I have been going to Market Basket. I’ve noticed the parking lots at S&S have been nearly empty for the last week. I wouldn’t call myself a “loyal” customer, but S&S is just the closest supermarket to me.
I would also point out that having the striking workers in front of the store helps. I would feel guilty entering the store with them right there.
HA! First thing I thought of too.
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The Stop & Shop in our area recently left after ca. 10 years in which they fought a brutal campaign to raze a building and redesign an entire shopping plaza, forcing out numerous long-standing locally-owned shops with drastic rent increases and replacing them with national retail establishments no one wants or needs. After all that misery, they took their ball and left, even though it was the busiest store in town. Fuck Stop & Shop. Long live Hannaford.
Here’s something on the subject that made me re-think what’s happening in my area:
https://www.ufcw1776.org/?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=733151
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I was hung out to dry by my UFCW steward about 25 years ago when I worked at Safeway. Utterly brutal, and the only word I can think of is ‘yellow union’. My crime was to work my union negotiated hours, rather than extra time as demanded.
We used to pay a flat rate for our dues - $6.50 a week. At the time I made $7/hr and was a high school student, so worked about 15-20 hours/week. Some weeks I worked as few as 4 paid hours and so basically paid a 25% union due, for no meaningful benefit.
Not long afterwards I quit and went to college. I have not spent a dime in a Safeway since, though I know they were gutted by a leveraged takeover about 20 or so years ago (borrow to buy, pillage pension and assets, break union, rinse repeat).
I’ve been in good unions, but the CFCW was not one of them.
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I was UFCW, too. They screwed me over with my harrassment case. I won’t shop at that chain, simply because I philosophically do not support the owner of it, given that he made his rep fucking people over. I worked there because at the time I didn’t have a choice.
But I don’t blame the full union. I blame the rep who decided my case was too problematic and complicated for her to spend time on. I blame the company for not just enabling, but encouraging a culture of abuse.
UFCW may not have been the ultimate defenders of me but they also negotiated contracts so hours were by seniority, not by picking favourites. Where you couldn’t be fired just because your supervisor hated you. Where you got regular raises (at least up until a point) and didn’t have to risk getting fired just to ask for one.
Like I said, they’re not rockstars, but they helped prevent some of the worst abuses. And any attempt at union busting is meant to aid in breaking all unions.
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Actually, not too bad. In my experience, the Stop & Shop employees ALWAYS seemed the most miserable by far, than any of the other stores.
For our local Boston suburban Stop & Shop, the competition is:
- several Market Baskets (great worker morale; they all went on strike a year-ish ago in support of the ousted CEO),
- Wegman’s (I don’t know how well the employees are treated, however, I’ve been shopping at various Wegman’s in both MA and NY for 20 years and the employees have almost universally always given off a vibe of efficiency, cheerfulness, and helpfulness, which is often an indicator of good treatment),
- Whole Foods (formerly, fairly well treated, but now the jury is out on changes that Amazon might make. I’m not encouraged by their new AmazonFlex delivery service: the drivers are Amazon employees, not WF, and always seem rushed and harried.)
- and Trader Joe’s (secretive private company with very mixed reports; some employees report having hated it, some loved it)
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When I worked at Wegmans I was treated very well. It was one of my first jobs out of college and I didn’t really realize how good we had it until I left. It was a local chain growing up and it’s been fascinating to see it expand over time. I know it’s been ranked as one of the best companies to work for for over twenty years, with most of that time in the top ten.
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A bit before the strike, the Stop & Shop stores in my area added these robots that wander around the store. All they do overtly is loudly announce that cleanup is needed in which aisle as soon as they see anything larger than a gum wrapper. I wonder what sort of survailance they might be doing https://twitter.com/ChuckWendig/status/1111369697038090241
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Where I am south of Boston there is also Star Market/Shaw’s (merged by some stores go by their old name. Non-union. Similar to Stop&Shop that they are an old New England chain or merged from old chains like Brockton Public Market. Like Stop & Shop owned by some non-US food conglomerate) , Price Rite (cheaper, but less selection), and I’m starting to see a few Aldis (owned by the brother of Trader Joe’s owner)
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As soon as Wegman’s opened near me, I stopped going to Stop & Shop; the employees at S&S were always incredibly unhelpful and the overall experience was consistently poor. Maybe this victory by the union will improve things.
The oddest Stop & Shop offshoot is the mini-chain they spun off a few years ago, bfresh, and then re-absorbed last year. So now it’s still called bfresh but carries all Stop & Shop products, and the service went to absolute heck.
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Ours too. I haven’t seen it (because I avoid S & S mostly), but all the local online discussion groups have been abuzz about how much everybody hates the thing (plus, apparently it’s frightened multiple small kids).
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