Willow Glen Resident

News

Labor leaders want unionized stores to replace vacant Albertsons sites

By Alicia Upano

Grocery labor union leaders are encouraging unionized companies to move into the deserted Albertsons stores, which includes the three vacated stores in the Willow Glen area.

United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 428 president Ron Lind said the union wants unionized grocery stores to move into the 12 stores in Santa Clara County, all vacated by Albertsons in the summer. These stores could offer jobs to union workers laid off in the Albertsons closures.

Many of the larger grocery chains are union, Lind said, including Safeway. The smaller, nontraditional stores such as Trader Joe's and larger chains such as Whole Foods are not.

Lind acknowledged union workers fared better than expected in the Albertsons closures. Many with sufficient seniority transferred to other stores or left the company. In all, Albertsons laid off 82 food clerks and eight employees in the meat department.

The closures affected nearly 600 workers countywide, 141 of them were workers employed in the three Willow Glen area stores.

In Willow Glen, Albertsons on Bird Avenue and the one on Southwest Expressway were considered small by today's standards.

Lind said in today's marketplace the sprawling 55,000-square foot, multi-department grocery stores are common.

Zanotto's, a family-operated grocer, is eyeing the Bird Avenue location, and given its small size, Lind said, "It might make sense."

But Zanotto's is not unionized, and Lind said the union would like to see the empty stores become union shops. Not only would the union help workers organize, but it would encourage the community not to shop at non-union stores, he said.

The Albertsons store closures were part of a 37-store shutdown in Northern California. These stores made up 22 percent of the chain's stores in the area, but only 12.4 percent of last year's profits, according to an Albertsons press release.