supermarket swindle at Brave New Films

Grocery Workers Win!

2008-01-12T20:10:17Z

What a great joy to hear the news yesterday that the grocery workers have gotten a decent deal.

After focusing on the fact they haven’t had a raise in 5 years, the fact that the CEOs are making millions, and the fact that they are desperate for healthcare, this was wonderful news indeed.

A big thanks to all of you who saw the Supermarket Swindle videos we did, signed the pledge, and were ready to stop shopping at the stores if there was a lock out.

It was a pleasure to work with the grocery union and to use our story telling skills to support their efforts.

Supermarket Swindle: Grocery Workers' Labor Fight Is the Subject of New Documentary

2008-01-12T20:04:34Z

This is a very-well written article by Joshua Holland on our upcoming documentary.

You should go eat the whole pie, but here is a slice:

At the end of June, more than 95 percent of the United Food and Commercial Workers' (UFCW) members in Southern California voted to authorize a strike if it becomes necessary. Negotiations continue, and both sides say they hope to avert a walkout if possible.
But the Golden State's grocery workers have little reason to believe management is bargaining in good faith. During the lock-out four years ago, the supermarkets' ownership group mounted a concerted attempt to break the union. Before the old contract even expired, they had hired thousands of replacement workers -- "scabs" -- flying some in from neighboring states. The owners locked out the grocery workers for 142 days in an attempt to make the union suffer for refusing a contract that called for dramatic reductions in employer contributions to workers' healthcare funds. The owners also tried to drive a wedge between older union workers and new hires by instituting a two-tiered pay scale that slashed earnings for less experienced workers and provided a powerful incentive for management to get rid of more experienced workers earning higher pay rates.
Even more dangerous in terms of the precedent it might have set was the grocery giants' push to deny affordable healthcare to California's grocery workers. The supermarkets argued that the healthcare concessions they sought were small, but an independent analysis by Richard Brown and Richard Kronick, two scholars at the University of California, concluded that the plan would have effectively spelled an end to affordable health coverage for California's grocers. "There is more to the employers' proposal than they have publicly acknowledged," they wrote, "and the proposal bodes ill for supermarket workers and, if adopted more widely, workers in other sectors."

This story, and the upcoming film, are important for many reasons. Among them is what's happened to the lives of supermarket workers in Southern California, which is unconscionable.

But it is also about this country, and the criminals who currently reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who have tried to turn this country back 100 years into a low-wage, no-benefit developing country where crony-capitalists make off like bandits.

It is time to just say no to the kind of venal people who would deny a supermarket worker healthcare and a living wage.

Enough Is Enough

2008-07-09T18:54:14Z

Tomorrow is the moment of truth.

Are the proprietors of large supermarket chains willing to be reasonable and allow workers to maintain a decent standard of living, or will dreams of even bigger yachts and backroom parties at the Bellagio get in the way of making a reasonable offer to supermarket workers in Southern California?

Let's hope past is not prologue, or a number of corporate oligarchs may be in for a bumpy ride not only in Southern California, but nationwide. As explained in a recent article in the Los Angeles City Beat:

Three weeks ago, when Southern California grocery workers announced a June 21 deadline to end their six-month back-and-forth with the big three supermarket chains, Vons, Ralphs, and Albertsons, it took exactly one week for their union brethren in Texas to terminate their contract extensions and start talking work stoppage. On June 11, workers in Toledo, Ohio did likewise, switching from a general, ongoing contract extension to a "meeting-by-meeting" extension, at the same time that similar talks have heated up in Oregon and Washington State. Rumblings have even been heard coming out of talks with the mostly independent grocery chains in St. Louis, Missouri. Now, as Los Angeles' cut-off date arrives with no agreement in sight, some labor voices are warning not just about picket lines, but about nationwide picket lines.
"This is part of a much larger fight across the U.S., of companies attempting to eliminate middle class jobs for maximum shareholder profits," says Mike Shimpock, a spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the union representing grocery workers, "It's happening all over the country, [these strikes] could certainly end up going national. They could engulf the entire West Coast. The markets are playing a very, very dangerous game of chicken in order to save a few pennies."

So there you have it. We'll know the answer tomorrow, as the last meeting before a potential strike is taking place with workers and the corporates sitting down together.

But if this is not resolved quickly and fairly, so that workers do not have to see their healcare disappear and wages continue to stagnate, then it may be time for a few corporate chieftains to strap themselves in. For it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Watch the video

Albertsons - Crazy about Profit (Spanish subtitles)

2008-07-09T18:54:27Z

From the director of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price comes a shocking new exposé of how America's supermarket titans, with corporate market caps in the billions and yearly salaries in the megamillions, have swindled their employees out of fair wages and benefits, resulting in thousands of children going without healthcare and their parents unable to afford even basic, human needs.

Supermarket Swindle

Watch the video

Albertsons - Crazy about Profit

2008-03-22T21:54:29Z

Supermarket Swindle

Watch the Supermarket Swindle teaser trailer, a new film by Robert Greenwald

2008-07-09T18:15:48Z

Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films, the team who made Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, are currently working on a shocking new exposé titled "Supermarket Swindle" which focuses on how America’s supermarket titans, with corporate market caps in the billions and yearly salaries in the megamillions, have swindled their employees out of fair wages and benefits, resulting in thousands of children going without healthcare and their parents unable to afford even basic, human needs. Learn more at SupermarketSwindle.com.

Watch the video