Colorado News - Safeway, King Soopers & UFCW Local 7

The contract between Colorado Safeway and UFCW Local 7 expired May 9th, 2009. The "members" authorized a strike but agreed to continue working until May 30th while talks continued. Safeway and King Soopers have a lock-out agreement and King Soopers has stated they will lock-out if the Safeway workers walk out.

That's the news synopsis and we have one more little wrinkle. King Soopers went on strike in 1996 and Safeway locked-out it's employees. Colorado/Safeway paid more than $5 million in unemployment to the locked-out workers during the strike. Safeway challenged the claims and finally, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the workers right to unemployment during a lock-out.

Enter the republican legislation and we have the law that currently exists: locked out workers can draw unemployment if it's an "offensive" lock-out but cannot draw benefits if it's a "defensive" lock-out. A King Soopers lock-out because of a Safeway walk-out be considered a "defensive" lock-out and the locked-out employees WOULD NOT receive unemployment benefits.

Colorado now has a democrat Governor and democrat legislation so HB-1070, that would allow ALL locked-out workers to receive unemployment benefits, was introduced. The original effective date was in 2010 and it wouldn't affect (unless there were a really looong strike) any current labor negotiations but in the final days of the legislative session that ended May 6th, the effective date was changed to July 1st, 2009 and sent to the Governor. Interesting timing!

Surprise! Much to the consternation and dismay of the UFCW, democrat Governor Bill Ritter vetoed HB-1070 at 4:55 PM on  May 19th and issued a press release stating:

"I believe it is ill-advised and counterproductive to enact legislation that materially impacts the relative bargaining position of parties in the midst of ongoing negotiations."

It's obvious our first term governor wants to be re-elected in 2010; I'll leave the discussion of the Governors true motives and political future to the pundits and applaud the Governor for his veto - Drive a wooden stake through it's black heart and kill it forever! And while you're at it, let us Coloradoans have our deserved right-to-work and banish union protection clauses to the dark pits of hell where they belong.

Colorado Safeway, King Soopers and Albertson's workers - grow up. You absolutely have the right to walk off the job and the other employers absolutely have the right to lock-out their employees if there is a strike going on. If you get locked out, it's exactly what you agreed to and paid for! If you buy into the load of horse poop the UFCW bosses have been trying to sell you, you have no one to blame but yourselves when you no longer have a job; I suspect there are at least two unemployed Coloradoans (and likely some out-of staters willing to move) waiting for every job the UFCW Local 7 members throw away.

You're getting some bad advice from Ernie, Kania, John and the rest of the bosses. Ask them how much of their comfortable salaries they're going to give up to help you out when you're unemployed and can't even collect unemployment.

Any organization that needs Federal and State protection to simply stay alive needs close watching!

It's 10 o'clock - do you know where your money is?

Image courtesy of the AnimationLibrary