Due to the fires, we have been watching local news. When I hear something, I try to find similar news online, so you have a link. Sometimes, I'm not successful. I wonder why. Did I misunderstand what I heard? Was the early report wrong? Was it less important than it seemed? Or are the print sources not reporting it?
The strikers were picketing two distribution centers. They have stopped. Here's the LA Times report:
On Thursday, the UFCW agreed to stop picketing outside two grocery distribution centers in El Monte and Brea so that about 250 Teamsters could return to work.
The two centers employ UFCW members, unlike others in the area that are staffed solely by Teamsters workers. By picketing those two centers, the union had kept Teamsters warehouse employees from their jobs.
Rick Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles, said that if talks with the supermarket chains failed to resume by the middle of next month, he expected to set up pickets at all distribution centers in the Southland.
That would keep 8,000 Teamsters drivers and warehouse workers off the job.
Icaza, who met with picket captains throughout the Los Angeles area Wednesday morning, said that at this point, it wasn't necessary yet to try to shut the centers down.
"Nobody's buying anything in the stores anyway," he said. "And it's only going to get worse."
Missing was a fact that came out on the local news -- if those Teamsters did not get back to work, they would lose THEIR health insuramce benefits. If true, then I'm not buying the threat that all the distribution centers will be shut down at any point. Nor am I buying the reason -- that shutdown of the distribution centers wasn't necessary.
Posted by Justene Adamec at October 25, 2003 10:12 AM | TrackBack"Nobody's buying anything in the stores anyway," he said. "And it's only going to get worse."
Apparently he hasn't been to the stores I've been at- word is from the workers I've talked to that shopping is picking up.
Posted by: The Angry Clam at October 25, 2003 01:38 PM (Permalink)