supermarkets
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in retail and the food industry around the world.
Gourmet Exploitation?
Workers are calling on upscale grocery store Agata and Valentina to respect its workers’ right to organize.
Workers Picket Upper East Side Specialty Market
A group of workers and supporters picketed outside Agata and Valentina this past Saturday as part of an ongoing labor dispute with the company. Workers are calling on A&V to respect its workers’ right to organize and stop engaging in illegal anti-union activity.
Why Did the Los Angeles Supermarket Strike End in Defeat? - Letter to Red and Black Notes
The following letter from Internationalism, the US section of the International Communist current, is a comment on an article published in the last issue of R&BN on the failure of the 2003-2004 LA supermarket strikes.
While we wouldn't use the same words or formulations, there are certainly many things in Loren Goldner's "Notes on Another Defeat for Workers in the US: The Los Angeles Supermarket Strike of 2003-2004," which was published Red & Black Notes #19, that are on the right track.
Who gives a toss?
This text was distributed at the beginning of 1998 in Hornsey, North London, in an area where a regeneration project was being proposed by the council, a project which directly threatened the quality of life of the author, who was living 100 metres from the supermarket area to be developed. After a couple of years or so, the supermarket aspect of the project was abandoned, though it's impossible to say whether the distribution of this text played a small part in the abandonment or not (probably not). It is followed by a text on looting and shops produced as part of the text "Miner Conflicts - Major Contradictions" in July 1984.
Photo: Safeways burning during the Watts riot of 1965.
REGENERATION = DEGENERATION
but
WHO GIVES A TOSS?
but
WHO GIVES A TOSS?
...WE DO!!!
Tesco threaten to lock out staff in Cork
Management at Tesco in Douglas, Cork have threatened staff with a lockout until June.
The Douglas staff began an official strike today (29 April 2009) due to the company ignoring long standing agreements with their Trade Union, Mandate.
Workers said that management told them that if they go on strike today, the store would remain closed until June and they wouldn’t receive any pay until then.
General strike over prices brings Belgium to a halt
A nationwide strike against rising prices disrupted transport, retailing and manufacturing across Belgium on Monday.
High-speed international rail services in and out of the country to France, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands were cancelled and picketing disrupted the port of Antwerp.
Workers were protesting in advance of the government's 2009 budget to demand action on inflation and the rising cost of living.
France: workers strike, many win
Restaurant and tire workers have won strikes with a bus drivers' strike ongoing.
Michelin - Workers at the factory in Toul (Meurthe et Moselle) began strike action after plans were announced to close it down. As well as occupying and blockading the plant with pickets of burning tyres the 826 workers also confined two managers to their offices during the four-day strike.
France: Carrefour strikers issued with summonses
Seven of the striking workers at the Grand Littoral hypermarket have been issued with summonses for "restriction of the right to work"
Workers at the hypermarket have been on strike since February the first.
France: Carrefour strike in Marseille enters 11th day
Till staff, shop floor workers and warehouse staff have been striking for 11 days now for better salaries and conditions.
The Grand Littoral branch of Carrefour is the only one in the country to have continued action after the national one-day retail strike. As a result Grand Littoral has been entirely closed for nine of the last eleven days.
France: unprecedented national strike hits retail sector
According to unions up to 80% of workers in supermarkets across the country joined in the strike action on Friday.
The strike was organised by the CGT CFDT and FO unions to pressurise management over pay and conditions, specifically part-time working and holiday working in a sector employing over 636,000 people.
Belgium: Supermarket workers launch wildcats
Workers at three sites have launched wildcat solidarity actions over the last few days.
The strike began at the Cointe branch of GB (owned by the Carrefour chain) after a union representative was sacked after an accusation that he had altered his timecard. The strike spread to the Flémalle branch the following day and workers walked out at Ans on Saturday. Workers are also currently demanding that the company respect agreed practises over working hours.
