Another Victory For Unions!

The war that Piggly Wiggly has been waging on its workers is finally over!

Piggly Wiggly Midwest has agreed to pay more than $570,000 in back pay to 500 union employees at six of its Wisconsin stores as part of a recent settlement reached with the National Labor Relations Board.

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The deal also includes new collective bargaining agreements with the union representing Piggly Wiggly employees, reinstating discharged workers and the previously announced decision to keep open a south-side Sheboygan store that had been slated for closure.

The unions had to file more than 120 charges of unfair labor practices over the past several years. Charges included multiple counts of bad faith bargaining, arbitrary and unilateral changes to wages and working conditions, unlawful firings, and an illegal attempt to get the workers to de-certify their union.

This victory shows the importance of unions in these days, despite the right's arguments that they are obsolete and no longer needed.

Unless these workers are all independently wealthy people who just happen to like to bag groceries for minimum wage, a single worker would not be able to afford the time or the money that it would take to defend their rights against bullies like the management of this grocery chain.

And the argument that the unions are just greedy people is ludicrous. They need the stores to thrive for them to thrive. They are fully aware that bankrupting the store would only hurt themselves as well. The unions are only trying to get a fair wage for their members and to protect their rights.

On the other hand, if it weren't for the unions, and the laws that they have fought for, there would be nothing to keep the greedy CEO's from ruining their workers, especially in the current economy where things are slowly turning around to a more positive outlook, but where there is still a dearth of family-supporting jobs. The current mindset of too many companies, especially the big ones, is that their employees are expendable tools and not people just trying to make it.

And yes, the same goes for the public sector workers, who just had a big win with the Act 10 rulings.

Hopefully, some day not too far off in the future, the self-described masters of industry will realize that they would be nothing without labor, and that it would be mutually beneficial for both sides to pull together and move forward instead of having to fight each other and have both sides lose ground.

Piggly Wiggly Is Coming To West Allis

I have learned today that the Majdecki Sentry food store in West Allis will be switching over to the Piggly Wiggly brand in August.  I would presume that the other Sentry store in Menominee Falls will also be converting to the Pig.

I have mixed feelings about this.  Sentry used to be a regular stop, but for the past several months, they haven't been able to keep up with the price wars with Pick'N'Save.  I had also been eager for a Piggly Wiggly to open up in my area, but after their union busting maneuvers, I'm not so keen on them anymore.

I also realize that this doesn't really matter to most of you, but I can't resist scooping the local paper whenever I can.

Drop The Pig

Management at the Piggly Wiggly in Sheboygan took a page out of Scott Walker's playbook and refused to negotiate a new contract with its union. As soon as the old contract ended, they started to claim there was their version of a fiscal emergency and started slashing employee hours. This was grieved and won by the unions.

However, despite winning an injunction on an appeal, the company is now threatening to close the store and lay off over a hundred people. The union has asked for the stores financial accounts to show the need. So far, there's been no opening of the books, just a lot of bluster from the company and the store's manager.

The reason that they don't want to open their books is because then they'd have to explain why there isn't a financial need to break the workers' backs except for pure, unmitigated greed:

Earlier this year, company officials said that heightened competition from non-union grocery stores in Sheboygan had placed increased pressure on the south-side Piggly Wiggly. New Pick'n Save and Festival Foods groceries have opened nearby in the past year.

Despite that, David Livingston, a Waukesha-based grocery analyst, said he was shocked by the announcement, as the Piggly Wiggly store had historically been one of the company's top performing locations in the state, though he figures rifts with the union and increased competition may have changed that.

"It's always surprising when you have a nice store, doing historically well, that's suddenly closing," Livingston said. "It's just unfortunate."

The company's announcement to shutter the store follows what's been a long and increasingly bitter fight between the company and the employees' union, which has filed more than 120 unfair labor practice allegations against Piggly Wiggly Midwest.

We know that the manager is trying to bluster his way out of this by two things.

One, he's been running the most successful Piggly Wiggly store in the region. Things don't go belly up that fast, even in Fitzwalkerstan.

Secondly, his stated concern of competition is rubbish since Pick'N'Save is a union shop as well. They have to pay the same wages as Piggly Wiggly. If the Pig's manager says he can't compete on a level playing ground, it shows that he's either lying or or unbelievably incompetent.

I know that Charlie Sykes and other right wing nut jobs have been trying to pin this on the unions, but the fact is that this is nothing more than greed and attempted union busting by the manager. If there was a real issue with being competitive, the manager would open his books to prove his case, as is required by labor laws.  Then he could negotiate for the concessions he is seeking.

We can help our union brothers and sisters out, even if we aren't in Sheboygan.  All we have to do is call the local Piggly Wiggly and tell them that we will stop shopping at their store if they don't call the Sheboygan manager and tell him to sit down and negotiate in good faith.  Then follow through with it.  I'll be calling the Piggly Wiggly store that I go to and doing just that.