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Market Forces Local grocery workers may be checking out for good. By Susan Zakin I knew I had lived in Tucson too long when my local strip mall felt like home. This happened about five years ago. I had just gotten back from a trip to Washington, D.C. and I was making the ritual visit to the Walgreen's-Abco combo near my house. I remember the unmistakable feeling that I was not in some plasticized alternative universe, but in my very own neighborhood. "Get out while you can," I remember thinking. "Leave now, before your brain turns into something that came out of a box at Wal-Mart." Of course, it was already too late. I hope it's not too late for the 850 Tucson employees of Abco, who recently had their world rocked when Abco's Texas-based parent company sold seven of its 17 stores here to the supermarket giant Safeway. I hope it's not too late for Judy Hopper. Hopper has been a supermarket checker for 21 years. She has worked for Abco since 1988, when its parent company bought out Lucky's. "I think Abco messed us over, I think Safeway did, and I think our union did," says Hopper. "When Abco bought Lucky's, everybody stayed. But Abco didn't do anything for us." Nobody is losing their job yet, but everyone is on probation and must wait five months for health insurance. Checkers like Hopper have to take a memory test to keep their jobs. Hopper flunked the test in January, but she can take it again. If she flunks a second time, she's history. "To me, the test has nothing to do with being a good checker," Hopper says. "You could have a cruddy personality and be a lousy checker, but pass the test." Paul Rubin, Southern Arizona director of the United Food and Commercial Workers, says he's been doing his best for the Abco workers. But it's hard to buck the trends in the supermarket industry. Abco's former owner, the Texas-based Fleming Cos. Inc., is primarily a food wholesaler. Fleming recently made a deal with K-Mart to supply it with groceries and decided to sell its Tucson supermarkets, Rubin says. The big-box connection is key, says Rubin. Superstores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart are getting into the grocery business in a big way, the same way they do everything. "That's the broader story behind what's happening," says Rubin. "The big change that's been going on in the grocery industry in the last few years is directly tied to stores like Wal-Mart." Traditionally, supermarket checkers have had strong union representation. For instance, Hopper, because of her senior status, makes $14.17 an hour and gets five weeks of vacation. Like many checkers, she works only 20 hours a week, but still gets full benefits for herself and her family, without having to kick anything in toward health insurance premiums. The other Abco workers I talked to had the same story. Even if they didn't work full-time, all had benefits. Many are single parents, or the sole support of their families. They have better health insurance and vacation benefits than many white-collar workers in Arizona. This could be why I've always noticed that the checkers at Abco are smart, professional and just plain nice. But this is hardly the shape of things to come. Wal-Mart is notorious for failing to provide its part-time workers, many of whom are women, with health insurance. According to the annual financial reports Wal-Mart must file with the U.S. Department of Labor, only 38 percent of the company's employees have health insurance. Even when they get health insurance, Wal-Mart workers must kick in almost 50 percent of their health plan expenses, says Rubin. The national average is 28 percent. Wal-Mart has a lousy record in other areas, too. In December, Washington state took over Wal-Mart's worker compensation program, accusing the retailer of failing to pay proper benefits to workers. In Maine, Wal-Mart recently was fined more than $200,000 for violating child labor laws more than 1,400 times by having teenagers working more hours than allowed by state law. The way of life enjoyed by Abco's employees already may be history. The trade publication Supermarket News calls Wal-Mart the largest supermarket in America. In Tucson, Wal-Mart already has two 220,000-square-foot superstores, on Valencia Road and near the Foothills Mall. Both have full grocery operations. The Wal-Martization of the grocery industry has many facets. But the fears for Abco's workers are clear. What will happen to the workers at the 10 stores that Safeway didn't purchase? Rubin thinks these markets may get snapped up by non-union stores like Southwest Supermarkets. So forget the health benefits. If you think things are any different at feel-good natural food stores like Wild Oats, think again. The Boulder-based Wild Oats natural supermarket chain is a notorious union-buster. In fact, the National Labor Relations Board recently scheduled a hearing to determine whether Wild Oats engaged in unfair labor practices by allegedly withholding profit-sharing checks after workers at a Food for Thought store in Connecticut joined the United Food and Commercial Workers. The Food Conspiracy cooperative is another story altogether. The co-op once was unionized, but I suspect someone figured out that "co-op" and "organize" was an oxymoron. One worker at Abco, who asked not to be named, has more reason than most to worry about how she will fare as the corporations rearrange themselves. She is a single mother in her 30s. Although not officially a full-time employee she has been working 40 hours a week. Safeway cut her hours in half and dropped her pay. Like everyone else, she is losing her health insurance--and her children's--for a five-month trial period. "In five months, you could wipe out a whole family," she says.
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