Striking for a better deal at Stop and Shop

 By Reginald Johnson

   

    BRIDGEPORT --- Union workers picketed the Stop and Shop stores on Main Street and Fairfield Avenue Friday, urging customers not to shop there while they are on strike.

  “Don’t stop! Don’t shop!” workers on Main Street called out to people as they pulled their cars into the parking lot. “Please don’t cross our line!”

  The Bridgeport workers are among the 30,000 employees that went out on strike at 240 Stop and Shop stores in southern New England on Thursday. Company management is demanding health and benefit cuts and reductions in pay on some days.

   Stop and Shop is owned by the Dutch firm, Ahold. According to the union, Ahold made $2 billion in net profits last year. The company got a $225 million tax break from the US government in 2017.

   “They made $2 billion in net profits last year, but they want us to accept the cuts,” said one worker. “It’s not right.”

  “They’re bringing in replacement workers who are making $20 an hour. That’s more than I make,” said one veteran worker.

Strikers picket the Stop and Shop store on North Main Street

  One woman picketing outside the Main Street store in the North End, who said she worked in the store for 20 years, was bitter at the customers who still keep coming to the store, despite the strike. “They just walk through. They don’t care,” she said.

   As one customer walked through the picket line, one of the strikers called out “Why do you walk through our line? We’d help you if you had a problem!”

  But for the most part, it appeared that patronage at the North End store was down a bit from Thursday when the strike had just started. The parking lot was about one-third filled.

  “ I don’t know how long this will go on. The last time there was a strike it only lasted four hours, but now we’re already into day two, so you don’t know,” said one employee. 

   The strike creates a real pinch for many Stop and Shop workers. 

 A story in  the Connecticut Post quoted one of them, Chris Mauro, who works at the Stop and Shop on Fairfield Avenue in Black Rock.

“I’m a single dad,” said Mauro, who lives in East Haven but works in Bridgeport. “I got 32 years in and my son is getting ready to go college. I’ve always been faithful to Stop and Shop, but I can’t afford all the give backs.”

That includes triple their current contributions to healthcare, triple the healthcare deductible and a reduced pension contribution as well as a reduction of time and a half pay on Sundays.

“This is a very scary time for me,” he told the Post. “The company isn’t even talking to our union.”

  On Friday evening at the North End store, Channel 12 showed up, and so did the politicians --- including U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, State Rep Chris Rosario, D-Bridgeport and several City Council members.  All of them voiced their support for the strikers.
  Members of the Teamsters Union Local 1150 also came to show solidarity.