In Southern California, the United Food & Commercial Workers (and its community allies) have launched a boycott of the Mexico-based El Super grocery chain.
Although the union claims the boycott has to do with unsanitary food and unsafe conditions–namely, providing workers with sick time, according to one writer, the real reason for the boycott has to with unionizing the plethora of ethnic grocers in and around SoCal.
According to Gustavo Arellano, editor of the alternative OC Weekly, the real goal of the boycott is to unionize Southern California’s ethnic supermarkets.
…the real reason for this action against El Super is being denied by the very people pushing for it: expansion of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Buena Park-based union that represents only seven of the 49 El Supers in the U.S.
Oh, they can deny it all they want–and a UFCW spokesperson did exactly that to the Los Angeles Times, arguing “The idea that we’re operating solely for the benefit of union members is ridiculous. We’re trying to raise standards for all workers and consumers.” But as I told Clam’s pal at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, this is one of the opening salvos in the UFCW’s campaign to organize at Southern California’s ethnic supermarket empires, from Northgate (where my dad works as a truck driver) to Cárdenas to 99 Ranch Market, Super King, H-Mart and so many more. In these wildly successful stores are thousands of workers without union representation, and as gabacho supermarkets keep folding and the UFCW’s membership rolls get smaller, expect them to mount a full-on recruitment effort for the ethnic giants.
If Mr. Arellano is right, the UFCW is doing more than merely boycotting, it is using El Super as a ‘ground zero’ for unionization.
