Grocery Strike Averted

Negotiators reached agreement last night between workers and the major grocery chains in Southern California. Details will not be known until final vote of the membership, probably Friday, but it will undoubtedly be approved and the strike is avoided. As far as I’m concerned details are unimportant because when agreement is reached without a strike everybody wins.

If I were not already a champion of collective bargaining, the people who work at the Albertson’s where I shop would certainly have won me over. Throughout the six months of negotiations these folks have been on duty, keeping their store fully functional and providing customers with a high degree of cheerful and pleasant service. To some degree, I have no doubt, that has been due to management creating an atmosphere in which that could happen, but mostly I think it has been a demonstration of a degree of personal and institutional integrity by these working men and women that has been truly heartwarming.

These folks are a credit to working men and women everywhere.