Strike and Boycott

Disagreements over health care insurance and union members’ rights: Employees of the Rite Aid drugstore chain go to the barricades.

Strike placards suddenly appear as I crest a hill driving to the supermarket. A half-dozen union members can be seen in front of a Rite Aid drugstore outlet in Cleveland, Ohio. The placards read “On Strike” in large print and then below, in slightly smaller print, “at other locations.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask one of the picketers. The man in his early 60s answers, “A few miles down the road, employees of that store are picketing it just like we’re doing here.” He pulls out a cigarette and continues, “I’m retired. My friend up front there is, too.” Then he points to a young woman and a group of younger men. “They work for the Giant Eagle chain and are here supporting us.”

I chat for a while with the retiree. He tells me that Rite Aid announced it plans to make their employees cover all the costs of their health insurance. The labor dispute has been going on for several months already. The retail trades union United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCU) actually started picketing 30 Rite Aid stores in 10 states on April 1. The International Longshore and Warehouse Workers Union (ILWU) has joined them in the action. Five hundred Rite Aid employees belonging to that union in Lancaster, Calif., walked off the job as well.

Attack on Unions

Beside the fight over health care benefits, the employees are defending members’ rights as union members. The Cleveland Rite Aid division has shown itself to be especially stubborn and is refusing to negotiate with the UFCU. The retiree says he’s convinced Rite Aid’s real goal is union busting. The young workers further on aren’t as willing to give opinions and refer us to the union steward, who is due back from lunch shortly. He arrives a few minutes later and gets out of his car parked on the other side of the street. I approach him, identifying myself as a journalist, but he is immediately suspicious, asking me where I’m from, whom I work for and what my motives are. Such mistrust is clearly evident at other Rite Aid branches as well. We later learn that management has planted many spies among the picketers. The steward relents somewhat and later says that only nine or 10 out of more than 50 Rite Aid outlets in the Cleveland area are unionized. He refers me to another store being picketed by its own employees.

It’s the same story here. A handful of people carrying signs stand in front of the Rite Aid parking lot, and several of them are draped in American flags. American picketers don’t carry red flags like those in Germany. They carry their nation’s flag to emphasize their constitutional rights. But here, too, the strikers are at first wary of me and ask me a lot of questions. The strike, they tell me, takes a toll on their incomes. When I ask how many are currently working inside this branch, two middle-aged women tell me there are four or five inside keeping the store open. On other days there may be only two. I ask them what it’s like to work alongside strikebreakers. They both only roll their eyes. A shop steward in his late 50s takes over and expresses his bitterness over the situation. Those standing nearby silently nod in agreement.

But, I ask, what good is the strike if the store remains open? The union steward answers that the union has called for a Rite Aid boycott. That means not only do the employees and the family of union members stop shopping there, the members of the auto workers union (UAW) and the truck drivers who belong to the Teamsters union stop shopping there as well. Practically the entire AFL-CIO supports their boycott. The strikers no longer predict a 10 percent decline in Rite Aid profits; now they’re saying the loss locally could be as high as 30 to 40 percent. That’s admittedly hard to believe. Unlike his colleague whom I spoke to at the first Rite Aid store, this member says that the number of unionized Rite Aid outlets isn’t nine or 10, it’s more like 25. But then he really gets into his rant and goes off on attacking Washington’s policies.

Now I have to butt in, and I ask once again what exactly the strike is all about. The two women help out by explaining that they pay $800 a month into a health insurance fund that is managed by Rite Aid and the UFCW. If Rite Aid wants them to considerably increase their portion, the union steward explains, the union has to be consulted as to what services will be provided and at what cost. In the current dispute, Rite Aid wants to cease all contributions from management’s side and, in addition, have sole power over management of the insurance fund in the future, a position also supported by the UFCW leadership.

The conversation then turns to President Obama’s health care reform measure. Despite “Obamacare,” the number of Americans without health insurance has risen from 49 million to nearly 50 million. The solution would be simple, says the union steward: All they have to do is combine the government’s minimum health care program, Medicaid, with the current retiree’s Medicare health insurance program. It would suffice to raise the premium costs but for both employees and employers alike.

“Then that would be exactly what we Europeans have,” I answer, astonished. The steward says it would also be like Canada but adds that things are different in the United States, which has no labor party. This phrase has precedent because, among others, the legendary head of the American communist party, Gus Hall, used it to describe what we call classic social democrats. The union steward goes on: “We have to curry favor with left-wing Democrats at great effort and expense,” he says in a rage, “while big business is able to buy any representative it wants with their huge campaign donations.”

But he doesn’t get really angry until he mentions that so many Americans let themselves be duped by Rupert Murdoch’s rabble-rousing Fox News channel. “First they cheer when one of the Republicans in the last debate says he would let an uninsured, fatally ill person die in front of the hospital. Then they protest when another candidate says he would do away with Medicare.” The union steward, whose bawdy jokes are enjoyed by the two middle-aged ladies, tells a few more jokes about female tea partiers, calling them “tea bags,” a sexist term their opponents use for them.

We could go on talking, but I have to be on my way. I drive off and watch as the picketers slowly disappear in my rear view mirror.