Bay Area grocery unions merge

Oakland Tribune, Nov 30, 2006 by Tim Simmers

Members of seven greater Bay Area food and grocery worker union locals voted to merge Wednesday to gain more clout against their supermarket chain employers.

Workers of the seven local branches of the United Food and Commercial Workers union ratified the merger by an overwhelming majority of 90 percent, creating one huge Local 5 of about 25,000 workers.

"Our members see the need to join forces with other unions to protect their wages, hours of work, benefits and working conditions," said Richard Benson, president of Local 870 of the UFCW in Hayward, one of the unions that voted to merge. "We have to think larger than our own counties and small locals now." The merger becomes effective Jan. 1.

The changing landscape in the grocery industry, with mergers and buyouts of the supermarket chains, is prompting the need for the restructuring, Benson said.

Workers of the group, which includes local unions from the Salinas and Monterey area up through the South Bay as well as Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano and Napa counties, mostly work for big grocers such as Safeway and Albertsons. On Monday, Save Mart Supermarkets of Modesto said that it agreed to acquire 132 Albertsons stores in Northern California and Northern Nevada.

The dramatic split of the AFL-CIO in summer 2005 is also driving the restructuring, Benson said. The new merged group will push hard to organize workers, Benson said.

Some locals approving the merger included Local 120 of Alameda County, Local 1179 of Contra Costa County and Local 428 of Santa Clara County.from Business 1

from 17 to 58 in October from September, although its year-over- year change still dropped 48.2 percent.

Robert Rivinius, California Building Industry Association president and chief executive officer, said that builders would continue to reduce their standing inventory and he didn't see prices dropping much in the future.

Throughout the state, multifamily home building dropped 7.6 percent from September to October, but year-over-year rose 28.4 percent. The East Bay's multifamily permits also rose 133.3 percent, or 165 to 385, from this time last year.

"I see this as a lasting trend," Perkins said. "Local governments say they want to see more infill, more transit-oriented development and more affordability. Multifamily housing fits the bill on all those fronts."

The San Francisco-San Mateo area went against that trend, with multifamily housing starts declining 15.3 percent in October to 221, from 261 in October 2005.

Barbara E. Hernandez covers real estate. Reach her at (925) 952- 5063 or at bhernandez@cctimes.com.