PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
for several years and is one of the
most successful corporations in
the country. Cerberus, the private
equity company that now owns
both Safeway and Albertsons,
recently merged the two corporations, paying a huge premium for
Safeway.
What does this mean for us? It
means two giant and profitable
companies will claim that despite
record profits, they cannot afford
to improve benefits or give
adequate wage increases.
RICK ICAZA, President
The More Things
Change...
Food negotiations are upon us,
and although many things about
them have changed (including the
ownership of the Big 3: Ralphs,
Vons, and Albertsons), the major
issues will be the same: wages,
retirement, and health care.
For the first time ever, our
members ranked retirement
security equal with health care as
the most important issues after
wages. This is probably due to
the fact that the health plan has
remained well funded for the past
several years while the pension
plan continues to be in critical
status. And it’s no surprise that
wages ranked as the most important. With the cost of living and the
minimum wage going up, we need
to update our progressions and
increase the top rates to keep up.
Meanwhile, the Big 3 owners are
on a roll. Kroger (owner of Ralphs)
has been posting record profits
Issue 1
How can they do that with a
straight face? Just like in past
negotiations, they come up with
all kinds of excuses. This time they
have two excuses: one, as always,
is the competition and the other
is a legal technicality related to
our pension plan funding.
One of the causes of the 20032004 lockout was the 3 companies’
refusal to make the legally required
payments into our pension plan
to make up for stock market
losses during the 2001-2002
economic downturn. In order to
settle the labor dispute and keep
our pension plan healthy, the
government, with our permission,
allowed the companies to make
reduced payments for a period of
time under an IRS regulation
called 412(e).
This type of arrangement was
later written into law in the federal
Pension Protection Act which
allowed all retirement plans to
make up investment losses over
even longer periods of time. But
the new law overlooked the IRS
THE VOICE
regulation that allowed our employers to make reduced payments.
Now the employers are claiming
that they can’t take advantage of
the protections of the newer
federal Pension Protection Act
(even though our lawyers and the
International Union believe they
can) because they are restricted
by IRS regulation 412(e). They
claim that the IRS may possibly
force them to repay more money
down the line and therefore, they
can’t afford to pay increased
wages, guarantee our schedules,
or fund our healthcare.
It’s a misleading argument and
we won’t stand for it. Wall Street
may thrive on breaking and bending the rules to make the rich richer
at working people’s expense, but
that won’t fly in our negotiations.
We are currently working with
the employers and the IRS to get
permission to remove the 412(e)
restrictions so we can take
advantage of the protections of
the Pension Protection Act.
Whether or not we are successful
with the IRS, we will have to
fight to make sure we get the
money we need to fully fund our
retirement plan and our health
plan and increase our wages.
We’re standing up [