In solidarity with dad on picket line
I stood in the back of the crowd, refreshing my Twitter page, hoping one of the senators I’d tweeted at replied after they saw my pleas for support. I looked up to my dad doing the same thing, checking his phone, only he was looking at the clock not social media.
I caught his eye as his face lit up. “Happy birthday,” he proclaimed. “Thanks,” I responded, sort of shyly. The whole crowd joined in to wish me well, one even sang me “Happy Birthday” — all the way through. The sense of camaraderie and care for one another struck me. The kindness of a happy birthday wish can mean a lot.
I rang in my 28th birthday outside the Westport Stop & Shop picketing with my dad and his fellow night crew workers. They stood outside all night, in the cold, with no bathroom or drinking fountain or music ... no anything, because they need to find a way to get through to Ahold Delhaize. Negotiations have failed over the course of the last month, leaving the United Food and Commercial Worker’s union to make the difficult decision to strike.
The official word the company gives the media is that they’ve agreed to “across-the-board wage increases” and that they’re open to negotiations, but what they fail to mention is that their new contract raises the price of health care by about five times the current cost, which more than negates the raise they’ve proposed. As a company they received a huge tax break, acquired dozens of new stores and saw more than a billion dollars in profit over the course of the last year.
Cutting benefits and pensions is a move motivated by greed, not financial need. For many of the workers the increased health care costs means the first shift of the week they work yields no actual take home pay because their salary goes to paying for their insurance. Couple that with a higher deductible and you can see the predicament the union is in — a strike means lost wages for their workers while accepting the deal as it stands leaves workers financially unstable as well.
The worst part of all of this isn’t even the company failing its loyal workforce, it’s the lack of community engagement and support. Union members are our neighbors, the people who coach the Little League teams and organize the Mother’s Day bake sale. They’re not nameless, faceless people. They deserve our support or at the very least common courtesy. Be a good neighbor and respect the picket line. Don’t shop at Stop & Shop until a fair contract is negotiated. Don’t walk up to a group of cold, tired, nervous people and say “I don’t support unions. I’m for free labor. Go get a job somewhere else,” because, while that might be your opinion, these are people who are just fighting for a fair, living wage and the prospect of leaving a company they’ve been with for 25 years isn’t as simple as just “getting a new job.”
Earlier in the night one of the guys asked me, “so what’d Dad have to do to get you here?” “Nothing,” I replied. “The union gave me a scholarship my freshman year. I feel like I owe it to be here for them now.”