Holidays weigh on strikers' minds

By: HENRI BRICKEY - Staff Writer | Friday, November 21, 2003 9:43 PM PST ∞

TEMECULA ---- The scene outside the local Vons has changed a lot since the early days of the strike, when supporters drove by honking their car horns and dropping off food and drinks to the strikers.

"That's all stopped," said Nancy Brokaw, who was holding a picket sign outside the Vons on Rancho California Road in Temecula this week.

Six weeks after grocery store workers went on strike, the picket lines are still intact, but many of the union workers say they'd rather be doing something else ---- especially with the approaching holidays.

At the Vons on Rancho California, tired-looking workers huddle in circles around portable heaters, mostly ignoring the shoppers who walk by them.

"Yuppie, stay-at-home moms drive up in their SUVs and walk by us like we're invisible," said Brokaw, who has worked 22 years at Vons.

Leaning against the strikers' shoulders and stacked in piles are picket signs, many with dog-eared edges and blemishes from the weeks they've been in service.

Employees at Vons markets went on strike Oct. 11 after negotiations between union representatives and store officials broke off amid disputes over health-care coverage. Ralphs and Albertson's then locked out their union employees.

The key issues in the dispute are employee health and retirement benefits and a proposal by the grocery chains to institute a two-tier system of pay and benefits.

The chains want workers to pay more for health benefits, citing a sluggish economy, rising health-care costs and increased competition from nonunion rivals such as Wal-Mart.

At the request of federal mediation chief Peter Hurtgen, both sides agreed to return to the bargaining table and negotiations are expected to resume today.

But many strikers aren't getting their hopes up.

"No one wants to give in. That's why we're still here," said Dimitri Thiveos, who was picketing outside the Albertson's this week. Since the strike began, about 10 percent of his co-workers have left the picket line, he said.

But the grocery companies have been equally determined, making the strike stretch out longer than most had ever expected, many workers say.

The last time the grocery workers went on strike was 1978, with the walkout lasting less than a week. That's about how long Candace Cardona said she expected this strike to last.

Several weeks into it, though, Cardona, who works in the bakery at Albertson's on California Oaks Road in Murrieta, began dipping into her savings to supplement the $5 an hour she earns while walking the picket line 40 hours a week. More recently, Cardona took a part-time job cleaning offices to help make ends meet.

"I can't wipe out my whole savings for this," said Cardona, who was hoping to use her savings as a down payment for a house.

Others, such as Thiveos and Brokaw, say they're ready to picket until the end.

"As long as the union keeps paying us we can do it," Brokaw said.

But others say their time on the picket line may be coming to an end if an agreement isn't reached soon.

"Christmas is looking scary," said Vons employee Bethany Allen. Even scarier, Allen says, is living without health-care benefits.

"After December, we're hitting the welfare line for health insurance," she said.

Five months pregnant, striker Danielle McHaffie said she'll be looking for another job if the strike doesn't end soon.

Contact staff writer Henri Brickey at (909) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or hbrickey@californian.com.