Giant Eagle labor dispute escalates

Current contract expires in June

A series of labor disputes has escalated behind the scenes at Giant Eagle stores across the region over the last year, pitting union employees against other workers and management in messy confrontations before the start of contract talks next spring.

Giant Eagle wants federal labor regulators to stop the United Food and Commercial Workers from activities that it says has “restrained and coerced” employees: allegedly protesting in the stores; filming other employees without permission; handing out “Fight for $15” minimum wage flyers to employees and customers; and spreading false rumors about a sale to rival grocery chain Kroger.

Union officials have fired back, claiming the O’Harabased grocer is retaliating against union workers for voicing their concerns. The union denies that those workers have done anything wrong.

The labor charges highlight a dispute with one of the Pittsburgh region’s largest employers, which is also dealing with industry challenges such as low food prices and stagnant sales. Meanwhile, Giant Eagle is competing with other retailers like

Target, Walmart, Sheetz and Aldi for workers.

Although the run-up to bargaining for a new contract can be heated in any workplace, this year’s feuding between the grocer and its union makes for an unusually contentious start to negotiations. The current UFCW contract expires in June.

It also raises the question of how aggressively a union can be allowed to campaign for issues and where an employer can draw a line. Giant Eagle’s three labor charges against the UFCW were dismissed last month by the National Labor Relations Board’s Pittsburgh regional office, but the company has appealed that decision.

“In recent months, the union has undertaken activities that we do not believe have the best interests of our team members or company at heart,” read a statement emailed in response to questions from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The grocer filed charges, it said, to counter labor charges the union had filed against the company over the last year.

According to the NLRB docket, the UFCW has filed six charges against the company, three of which are pending.

The company’s statement added that the union, which represents about 5,600 Giant Eagle workers, “chooses to take its cue from an unhelpful playbook at the expense of meaningful dialogue.”

Union officials are “genuinely concerned about the direction of this company,” said Tony Helfer, president of the UFCW Local 23, after a rally outside of Giant Eagle’s headquarters in RIDC park earlier this month.

In the past four years, employment at Pittsburgh-area supermarkets and grocery stores — the whole sector, not just Giant Eagle — has shrunk by more than 13 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly 3,000 people in the Pittsburgh region left grocery jobs during that time —

leaving any occupation tracked by the agency.

Giant Eagle, which has 34,000 employees at more than 420 supermarket and GetGo convenience store locations concentrated in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, has seen revenue fall to $9.4 billion in 2016, down from $9.9 billion in 2013. Last fall, through buyouts and layoffs, the company eliminated 350 corporate positions.

With market pressures and the encroachment of online food delivery, many grocers have consolidated. For more than a year, rumors have swirled that Cincinnati-based Kroger is circling the waters around Giant Eagle. The O’Hara company has denied those rumors.

Meanwhile, the grocer’s union workers have been increasingly vocal in Pittsburgh about their desire for better pay. Following the lead of the Service Employees International Union’s advocacy for a $15-an-hour minimum wage for UPMC workers — a pay raise the health giant granted last year — labor activists are pressuring Giant Eagle and other large companies to raise wages.

In June, the UFCW took part in a demonstration at the South Side Giant Eagle that included a bus full of labor activists from across the country. It was part of a three-day conference to discuss ways to fund campaigns that pressure employers in low-wage sectors to boost pay. The same store was the site of a protest march in late August.

In labor disputes, the National Labor Relations Board can file charges and decide whether to issue a complaint to halt certain activity. Although charges filed by individuals, unions and employers are common — roughly one a day is filed in the Pittsburgh office — an employer filing a charge against a union is unusual.

Labor experts estimate that roughly four out of every five charges are filed against an employer. A tally of charges filed in the Pittsburgh NLRB office since June 1 neatly fit that trend: Of the 138 charges filed over more than four months, 110 of those — or 80 percent — were filed by unions or individuals against an employer.

In its three charges filed against the UFCW, Giant Eagle laid out 31 instances — ranging from September 2016 to June 2017 — in which it believes the union crossed the line at a number of its locations, including stores at Settlers Ridge, Camp Horne, South Side, South Fayette, Edinboro, Waterfront and Brighton Heights.

The grocer claims the union demanded higher pay and circulated petitions that fanned rumors of a Kroger overture. In one allegation, the union blocked access to a break room to “film an interview about the false sale of the company with an employee that was on the clock,” accordingto the complaint.

Mr. Helfer did not dispute the claims. Instead, he argued the company has an open-door policy that permitted union workers to bring concerns to managers. He said the union took pictures of the meeting in a manager’s office to “document what happened, so there were no allegations later that you guys were outrageous or whatever.”

“What’shappening is their ownworkers are now leaving the company to go work for the competition,” Mr. Helfer said, referring to higher starting wages paid by Walmart, Target, Costco and other retailers. “It doesn’t make sense. You need to compete for these jobs.”

In its statement, Giant Eagle responded that “regardless of union affiliation, we value each and every individual who works in our stores,” adding “our focus has been, and will continue to be, on discouraging union leadership from misleading our team members and customers.”

At the rally earlier this month, a few dozen UFCW supporters shouted chants through a loudspeaker across the street from the company’s O’Hara headquarters in RIDC Park.

A small group then walked into the building and asked for a meeting with CEO Laura Karet. After being told she wasn’t in the office, they left a phone number and told the company to call any time.

“We’re going to keep our pressureon,” Mr. Helfer said.