The saddest part of this is that it's almost impossible to convince members o the working class that this is the case. I read an opinion someplace (sorry, lost the link) that Americans in particular will go along with such attitudes because they believe that somehow, someday, they will join that economic class, and they don't want it destroyed before they can get there.

If you ask them about whether they paln on retiring, the usual answer is yes. If you try to tell them that Social Security is being spent in Iraq at over a billion dollars a week, and that there is absolutely no legal protection for their pensions, they refuse to listen.

More and more it looks to me like we are going to repeat the French Revolution before enough people get it - far too late.

Point taken, but you need more narrative detail on this one. Why was the union initially targeting only Vons and why was it deemed economical by the other companies to lock out their own workers?

Probably for the same reason it was done here in St. Louis in the UFCW's strike against Shop 'N Save - it only struck one because they didn't want to alienate customers.

They strike only one to minimize the economic hardship. In theory at least, the non-striking employees will then donate food and some economic assistance to the striking employees, enabling them to remain on strike for a longer period of time.

The lock-out by management is an attempt defeat this co-operation between the locals, maximizing the financial damage to all union members, thus forcing the strikers to settle for less. The financial incentive for non-struck chains to join this alliance is that they figure if one chain has to cede to the union's demands, all will eventually have to pretty much match those demands or risk losing their best employees.

Suffice it to say that targeting only Vons was part of the union's strategy to win the contract campaign, and that it came as no surprise to anyone (except perhaps to those who believe in "free" markets! :) that the other employers locked out the rest of the So Cal unit. Word on the street is that 85% of the unit -- that's 70,000 workers -- participated in the strike election, with 98% voting to walk out. Given what the boss proposed at the bargaining table, such astonishing solidarity is also no surprise.

The employers want to end the health care maintenance of benefits clause and cap health care contributions at the current rate for existing employees. They also want to create a new tier for newly hired employees with a health care "plan" which the vast majority of new hires will not be able to afford. If the UFCW doesn't win this fight, and similar fights brewing in other major metropolitan markets, it will be a major loss for everyone, as hugely profitable corporations throw even more working Americans into the ranks of the uninsured.

http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/index.cfm?pressReleaseID=47

I think it's a disservice to your readers (surely it's not an intentional mis-lead) to confuse "class" with "union". The action by the employers, regardless of its morality, is not an attack on any economic class, it's action against the union. The chains hired replacement workers, probably from a slightly lower "class" (meaning I bet the pay is a little lower) than the union workers.

There may be class warfare going around, but this ain't it.

Sam

Sam- I'm not sure the argument you are making? If the whole corporate class in toto does not face off against 100% of all workers, there are no classes involved?

Here you have the unified supermarket sector united to destroy labor standards in the industry--- what is that other than a united class attack? (And that there are some desperate unemployed folks left vulnerable under the system hardly changes that fact.)

"If the whole corporate class in toto does not face off against 100% of all workers, there are no classes involved?"

Don't be silly. The union elected to strike, so the supermarkets elected to lock the union out, giving those jobs to other workers of the same class. It wasn't a blow aimed at the "class", obviously, but at the union.

Union membership does not equal "class".

Yes- you repeat yourself; workers in a particular industry are in a strike against the unified industry representatives.

But that's not class conflict?

What is your definition of "class" such that this is not an aspect of class action, by both employers and striking workers? (Other than as I said, defining class action as only the 100% combined action of all workers, anything less being some other thing.)

Sam_S, the purpose of the union is to work for the benefit of the class, so the supermarkets' action was a blow aimed at preventing the union from helping the class. The non-union individuals who took over working for the supermarkets were doing their class a disservice, though since they were probably desperate for the money they can't really be faulted.