Possible Acme Markets Strike in South Jersey Could Impact Holiday Shopping;
UFCW Local 1360 in Fight to Protect Health Benefits
BERLIN, N.J., Nov. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Last night the union
representing 2,300 workers at Acme Markets throughout South Jersey voted to
authorize a strike and could be hitting the bricks as early as Thursday,
November 19, 2009. A supermarket strike the week before Thanksgiving would
impact thousands of holiday shoppers
Members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1360, meeting at the
Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill, voted 580-43 to authorize the Union's
leadership to call a strike if a contract agreement is not reached with Acme
Markets.
Before the vote Sam Ferraino, the President of UFCW Local 1360, outlined why
he believed that Acme Markets was not bargaining in good faith with the Union,
citing the company's delaying tactics over the months since the contract
expired last April.
"Acme Markets has been stalling these talks for months," said Ferraino. "These
are the same tactics that the company used with another UFCW local union in
the area, stalling for months and then holding a gun to the head of the
members. We are not going to go down that same road."
After Acme Markets expressed concerns about the rising costs of health
benefits, Ferraino said the Union worked to come up with a solution that would
maintain benefit levels for employees but still save the company over $2.4
million.
"We worked for months to structure a solution that would create a new benefits
fund, maintain our members' current level of benefits and still save the
company $2.4 million," said Ferraino. "The company flatly rejected our efforts
and is insisting that we need to keep the existing benefit fund and force
members to pay more out of pocket saying this is a so-called philosophical
reason. To me that makes no sense."
"Nobody at UFCW Local 1360 wants a strike. This is not about us bullying the
company but it is about us trying to get to a fair contract settlement," he
said. "However, we are in a fight to protect our health benefits and when we
develop a solution that achieves that goal and saves the company millions and
caps health care costs in the process and the company still refuses to agree
then we may have no alternative but to strike."
UFCW Local 1360 represents 10,000 members in the retail food, local
governments, health care and service industries in South Jersey and in lower
Bucks County in Pennsylvania.
SOURCE United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1360
Sam Ferraino, +1-888-937-1360 or Bob Wolper, +1-215-896-2970, both of the
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1360
