Rite Aid Unions Unite Against Concessions

[Better with a Union Man]

http://www.labornotes.org/2010/12/rite-a...oncessions

Jenny Brown| December 16, 2010


The drug store chain Rite Aid is in financial straits and has escalated its assaults on unionized employees. In response, workers from California to Cleveland (shown here) protested at 40 stores on December 15. Photo: Debbie Kline/Cleveland JWJ.


The drugstore chain Rite Aid is in financial straits and has escalated its assaults on unionized employees. In response, workers from California to New York raised the volume of their protest, with at least 40 actions in front of stores December 15. The unions that represent Rite Aid workers are working together more closely than they ever have, organizers say.

Rite Aid warehouse workers in Lancaster, California, fought a fierce two-year battle to gain union representation in 2008. After another year and a half, they’re still bargaining a first contract, and Rite Aid wants to increase their health insurance costs nearly $45 a month, despite only a 1.5 percent increase in health costs to the company.

Four hundred union members will be laid off January 1 when Rite Aid moves their work from the Rome, New York, distribution center to a non-union facility near Syracuse. “I am sick of Rite Aid saying it is our fault this place is closing,” said Tim Hogan, president of Teamsters Local 182.

In Ohio, Rite Aid imposed a concessionary contract on retail workers, drastically increasing health care costs and causing talk of a strike.

FULL story at link.
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