Pima Area Labor Federation (PALF) Encourages Community Support In Light of Impending UFCW Local 99 Strike of Fry’s & Safeway Grocery Stores

TUCSON, AZ – Statement by PALF Chair and CWA Local 7000 President Linda Hatfield regarding the potential strike by UFCW members across the state.

Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 99 will go on strike Friday, November 13th at 6:00pm if union leaders and representatives of Fry’s and Safeway do not reach an agreement over wages & benefits for approximately 20,000 grocery workers throughout Arizona.

Safeway and Kroger are two of the largest grocery chains in the nation and both have made cutting employee hours in order to avoid providing respectable benefits a common practice. The union has repeatedly forgone wage increases in the past in order to provide health care for their workers, and the companies’ inadequate contributions to the Health and Welfare Fund make future cuts to benefits or increases in premiums inevitable. The union has and continues to be willing to sacrifice in other areas in order to ensure that all workers have the benefits they need to keep themselves and their families healthy.

Fry’s has placed full page ads in Arizona’s largest daily newspapers advertising temporary positions to fill-in for striking workers at $9 to 9.50 an hour, wages that exceed those of many existing store employees. If the company invested these resources in their current labor force all sides would benefit from not having to face this impending conflict.

We are asking that the community support the workers of Fry’s and Safeway and, if no agreement is reached by Friday, November 13th, that we refrain from patronizing these stores until the labor dispute is resolved. Please respect these workers, the ideals they are striving for, and the picket lines they keep. Support your local grocery workers and shop elsewhere until the company and the workers have come to a mutual agreement.

CONTACT: Pima Area Labor Federation (PALF), pimaalf@yahoo.com, 520-388-4139.