Remembering the great grocery strike of 2003-04

While buying groceries at Vons in Montecito the other day, I started talking to Rebecca Rossman, a checker who has worked in grocery stores since graduating from high school 20 years ago, about the famous grocery strike of 2003-04.

I figured it was old news but she told me that everyone in her store, two years later, was still talking about it.

Intrigued, I asked if she would talk to me about how the strike affected her and she agreed.

I was surprised to learn that Ms. Rossman didn’t work at Vons during the 141-day upheaval, from October 2003 to March 2004, and yet she still views it as a sea change both in her life and in the industry.

The struck companies — Kroger, Safeway (which owns Vons) and Albertsons — hemorrhaged patrons, sending them flocking to other grocery stores in the area, including the grocery store where Ms. Rossman worked at the time. That store hired more workers to compensate for the increased business during the strike, but it was still “crazy” working there, she said.

“We were exhausted, it was emotionally draining,” Ms. Rossman said. “The work area was pretty much unbearable.”

The workload caused “a lot of antagonism” between prestrike workers and the new hires, between management and employees.

The stresses very quickly piled up on each other. Her union (the same one calling the strike at the other stores, the United Food and Commercial Worker Union) “blew through the strike fund probably after about four or five weeks. We were worried about whether or not (the union) were going to be solvent and they’ve got my pension,” Ms. Rossman said.

Her store hired a new manager whom she thought was incompetent, causing them to fight constantly. The manager, the stress of not knowing when the strike would end and the chaotic workplace caused her to suffer from severe abdominal pain, which eventually required hospitalization and surgery.

“It was all I could do just to show up to work and go home,” she said.

Eventually, all these stresses became too much so she quit, going on unemployment and receiving government benefits, which felt awful to her.

“I never had experienced that kind of thing before in my life. It was a very humbling and humiliating kind of a thing. I tend to be very prideful that I had never had to do that before. At the same time it wasn’t enough (to live on),” Ms. Rossman said.

It was the wrong time to get sick, it was the wrong time to quit.

Her bills skyrocketed.

It took her six months to get a job at the Vons in Montecito because the new contract eventually negotiated by the UFCW held that benefits accrued at one unionized store didn’t transfer to another if there was a gap in employment of more than four months.

“I have 20 years experience (in the grocery business) . . . I bring a lot to the table,” Ms. Rossman said, but she returned to work and for a year had no benefits, overtime she’d previously had, sick leave, or vacation days.

Before the strike she had made $18 an hour, now she earns $13.50.

When I asked Ms. Rossman how well she is able to live on $13.50 with no benefits in Santa Barbara she laughed without much humor.

Before the strike she had lived with her partner, just the two of them, but their crushing medical debt and lower income forced them to separate.

She moved into a more affordable group-living situation, while her partner moved in with her sister. They are now considering filing for bankruptcy to dig out from under the $50,000 they owe in bills.

Ms. Rossman says her new financial problems are common among her co-workers at Vons, many of whom earn less than she does. She estimates that some large portion, perhaps half, now receives some kind of government assistance, such as food stamps and subsidized housing.

The strike and subsequent agreement reflect mistakes by both the union and employers. Industry analysts estimate that, because the pay is now so bad, about three-quarters of first-year hires quit.

They also believe that in the past two years since the strike ended, Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons have collectively lost about $1.3 billion in sales because some customers who went elsewhere never returned.

Ms. Rossman said repeatedly that her Vons managers appreciate her work and treat her fairly.

Nevertheless, she’s decided to start studying for a nursing degree at City College.

“I really understand at a much deeper level that the grocery industry that I used to know has completely changed,” she said.

“Having to be in the hospital a lot and seeing the nurses, I thought, that’s what I need to do.”