BY ROGER ANNIS
CALGARY, Alberta - Some 10,000 strikers at the Safeway grocery chain are pressing their fight across the province of Alberta. The workers walked out on March 26 against a company "final offer" for a new contract that refuses to restore big wage cuts given up in 1993, and which deepens the company's drive to become a largely part-time, near-minimum-wage employer. Many strikers are expecting a lengthy battle.

"The company is trying to wear us down, to get more and more to cross the picket lines and return to work," explained striker Jason Nicol at a picket line rally here on April 12. "They hope the customers will see that as a sign that it's no longer worth the inconvenience to shop elsewhere."

About 200 strikers and supporters participated in the rally. The action was part of an effort by the striking union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, to boost the visibility of the strike. Another 500 people rallied at a picket line in Edmonton, the provincial capital, on the same day.

A province-wide vote by workers on the company's final offer was conducted March 31 to April 2. Seventy-eight percent voted it down. Here in Calgary, the second largest city in the province, the vote was 60 percent against.

About 1,500 union members have crossed the picket lines, according to the union's estimate, while Safeway has kept its stores open with scab labor. The company refused an offer by union officials on April 4 to modify the union's demands in exchange for the company returning to the bargaining table. The union has been without a contract since March, 1996.

"Our strike is an example for all the unions," explained striking worker Joe Loria at a union picnic following the rally in Calgary. "We have to stop letting the companies push us around."

Loria and co-workers Chris Metcalfe and Sean Kinney took a few minutes to explain the issues in the strike. All three work part-time and are high school students. "The full-time workers are fighting to get back the wage rates they gave up in 1993. Us part-timers want a guaranteed number of hours per week, the same pay increase schedule that we now have, and we're against a cap on the maximum salary."

In 1993, Safeway workers gave up $2.85 per hour from the top salary rate after the company pleaded poverty and threatened to close all its stores in the province. The union also accepted a new wage rate of just above minimum wage for new employees.

Today, 82 per cent of the workers at Safeway are part- time. Many of those are high school and college students. There is no longer any promotion or hiring into full-time positions. New employees start at $6.40 or $6.80 per hour and receive an increase of approximately $1 per hour after each 500 hours of work. Safeway wants to cut that increase to an average 46 cents. It wants to cap the maximum wage that a worker can earn at $14 per hour, down from the current $16, and it is refusing to restore paid sick leave for part-time workers that was given up in 1993.

"The company is offering a signing bonus if we take their contract, but that is meant to deceive," said Metcalfe. "We will lose big time if the company gets the new pay scale."

The union is also seeking a guaranteed minimum of number of hours per week for part-timers. It wants the available hours of work to be assigned according to seniority rather than the arbitrary system currently in place. The hours of many part-time workers are typically limited to as little as four or five per week while the company hires at will into the minimum wage rate.

"The company is limiting our hours in order to discourage the higher seniority workers and get us to quit," explained Nicole Tuttle, a university student and part-time cashier. She spoke while picketing a store here on April 11. Five of her six family members work at Safeway. "Before 1993, my brother was getting 20-24 hours per week. Since then, he has dropped down to 5-10.

The striking workers are very encouraged by the support they are receiving from Safeway customers. There is a widespread, spontaneous boycott of the strike-bound stores by many customers who are choosing to shop elsewhere.

"The support from the customers has been very strong," explained Matt Vandenbeld while picketing at the rally in Calgary. He is a part-time worker and university student ."We're hearing that business is down 50 percent or more. The support is strongest in the working-class areas of town."

In Lethbridge, Alberta, the only city where grocery workers voted narrowly to accept the company offer and have not joined the strike, striking meat department and delicatessen workers report a big drop in customers.

News reports in the Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal, the two largest daily newspapers in the province, concede that business in the strike-bound stores is way down. "This strike has been a public relations mess for Safeway because it has caught the public imagination in a way few strikes do in Alberta," the Journal wrote in an April 12 editorial that called on the union to surrender its issues. "[The strike] has dramatized the plight of part-time workers struggling to get by on inadequate hours of work."

"We've got to keep up actions like the one today," said Vandebeld, "so that customers know we want them to keep up their support."

"We're organizing for a big show of support for the strike on the May 3 weekend," explained strike coordinator Larry Zima in an interview.

On that day, the Canadian Labour Congress is organizing a day of protest in 27 cities across Canada against the attacks on social programs and other workers' rights being waged by the federal and provincial governments. Rallies will take place in Calgary and Edmonton, and according to Zima, "Our fight will be front and center at those actions."

Roger Annis is a member of the International Association of Machinists in Vancouver. Sarah Dave in Lethbridge, member of the Young Socialists contributed to this article.  
 
 
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