The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Stop & Shop to have temps staff stores during strike
Managerial, corporate personnel to step in as needed to minimize inconveniences
In any union-led walkout by its employees in Connecticut and New England, Stop & Shop plans to bring in temporary workers as well as asking managerial and corporate personnel to step in as needed in an attempt to minimize any inconveniences for customers.
A company spokesperson gave a brief synopsis of the company’s plans Friday in response to a Hearst Connecticut Media query, after a vote earlier this month by a United Food and Commercial Workers International Union organization representing Massachusetts Stop & Shop workers.
More than 31,000 Stop & Shop employees in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island belong to the union, according to Jennifer Brogan, a spokesperson for Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop, which is a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize.
The company has more than two dozen stores in southwestern Connecticut, with two local UFCW entities in the state scheduled to hold their own strike authorization votes next week. On Thursday, the Westport-based UFCW Local 371 noted Ahold Delhaize’s $2 billion in profits last year, and described the sides as “nowhere close” to reaching a negotiated outcome.
On the Indeed jobs board, some 360 Connecticut workers reported hourly compensation the past three years averaging between $10 and $14 depending on the job function.
On Friday, however, Stop & Shop released its own data on average full-time wages for rank-and-file workers in Massachusetts, which the company stated ranged between $16 and $20 — 20 percent to 44 percent higher than grocery industry averages computed by Mercer.
The current contract expired Feb. 23, with Stop & Shop having defended its benefits packages as competitive with other major retail chains in the region including the Whole Foods Market subsidiary of Amazon, Trader Joe’s and Walmart.
“We are continuing to negotiate in good faith with the UFCW locals and remain committed to reaching a resolution as quickly as possible,” Brogan stated in an email response to a Hearst Connecticut Media query on the company’s strike contingency plans. “Bargaining will continue next week with negotiation sessions scheduled on March 7 and 8. Should a union strike or job action occur, we have plans in place to minimize interruption to our store operations so that our customers can continue to count on Stop & Shop.”
The company has not relayed its plans on handling a strike during negotiations with union representatives, according to UFCW spokesperson Amy Ritter. Stop & Shop workers last walked off the job 30 years ago this month, with the stoppage lasting less than a day.
Entering 2019, about 100,000 workers are available in Connecticut, according to estimates by the state Department of Labor, about 28,400 of them in southwestern Connecticut. The actual labor pool available to Stop & Shop would likely be much smaller, depending on how many would consider short-term supermarket jobs.
Ritter noted that some of those positions require extensive training, particularly with regard to safety considerations in departments where workers handle food or dangerous equipment.
Previously on its careers website, Stop & Shop had stated it typically hires employees for new stores six weeks in advance of an opening, providing a rough yardstick for the time it requires under normal operating procedures to select, process and train new employees.