As the strike at Vons and Albertsons continues into its eighth week, we absolutely must continue to support the striking workers, and send a message that the issue of health care is important not just for supermarket workers, but for all Californians as well.
In many ways, my support for the strikers comes from my intimate knowledge of the often difficult conditions in which they work. When I was 16, one of my earliest jobs was working at a neighborhood Alpha Beta supermarket, a chain that was swallowed up years later in subsequent buyouts and mergers in the early ’90s.
Working part-time during the school year, and even longer hours during the summer, I took all the worst shifts, often working holidays and night shifts as I tried to save my minimum wage income for college. During that time, I pushed shopping carts, bagged groceries, go-backed goods (returned unwanted goods back to the shelves) and compacted cardboard boxes.
During the year I worked at the store, I got to know the other workers pretty well. They were young students like myself, other young adults, married folks supporting their families and even elderly people working to earn a living. The store even hired people with disabilities, giving them a meaningful occupation and opportunity to succeed. In a way, the supermarket had a very inclusive sense of family to me, consisting of all ages, races and creeds.
I remember a lot of the positive aspects from those days, but there were also many problems related to the health issues that we faced. Many of the cashiers were elderly women who had to lift and scan heavy grocery items. Because of the repetitive lifting involved, many suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome, and had to wear arm braces to ameliorate the pain.
Safety was an ever-present issue. People who worked in restocking or in the meat, poultry or deli sections had to be careful not to cut themselves on box cutters or meat-slicing machines. In the back of the store, employees had to receive special training in order to lift large grocery items on wood palettes by forklift. Even when baling cardboard boxes, employees had to take special precautions to avoid being hurt while using the compression machine.
In observing all these things, I saw firsthand that supermarket employees faced a range of issues specifically related to health and workplace safety.
Even I was not free from work-related health problems. After months of working there, I developed a benign cyst in my left hand from the repetition of pushing shopping carts back into the store. It turned out that the plastic in the carts was rubbing against the bones in my hand and had accumulated into a pearl-shaped mass of scar tissue. I had to have this cyst surgically removed and still bear the scar today. Despite the many hours I worked, I wasn’t eligible for health insurance and was luckily covered by my mom’s health insurance for this procedure.
After all these years, I can see today that the current supermarket strikers are fighting for the same things that were issues of concern for me all those years ago. And, contrary to the paid advertisements being put out by the grocery stores in local newspapers, the health benefits workers would receive under the new contract are anything but substantial.
The new contract would force increasing health costs over time onto the backs of employees, and new hires would be effectively cut off from any real coverage. This shifting of the burden of health care comes at a time when the supermarkets have continued to grow and have no fiscal excuse for being so callous to their workers’ health needs.
Despite the rising costs of health care (which is a problem in itself), I believe the supermarkets can more than afford to pay for these increases. And just as importantly, they have a moral obligation to do so considering the inherent health risks in the occupation.
In the face of the upcoming holiday season, it is of the utmost importance to continue to support the strikers by refusing to shop at Vons and Albertsons. Holding the integrity of the picket lines is a time-honored tradition and means of demonstrating moral support for the strikers’ position.
There is a growing concern for rising health costs. By supporting the picket lines, you not only support the strikers, but are standing for a greater moral position: All people have a right to affordable health care for themselves and for their families. And if you do support the strikers, please remember a slogan from the advertisements of the old Alpha Beta supermarket and “tell a friend.”
Yokota is a graduate student in Asian American Studies.