As some of you have heard, Safeway was bought out yesterday. Now I work at
safeway. We have been hearing about this sale for a while and have had time to
process it. Given it was a private equity firm that bought safeway, I fear the worst.
Now this firm already owns Albertsons and having been to Albertsons, I can tell you it is a
badly run company. Contract disputes have reduced the pay of Albertson workers by a lot.
for example, they get $5 dollars less an hour then we do and they have no sunday pay, time and half,
Now sunday pay may not sound like much but often it is the difference between an ok paycheck
and one that can actually pay the bills. I know a lot of safeway employees who have second jobs or
are on food stamps because the pay isn’t that great and they keep many employees at minimal hours,
just at or around 24 hours. At our store, the number of workers that actually get 40 hours a week, is
roughly around 25 or 30% and we have over 50 employees. At the check stand where I work, we have
around 20 checkers and maybe 5 of them get 40 hours.
Now one thing I am hearing is they will “hostess” us which means they will declare chapter 7 and
a year later reopen inviting the employees back with minium wages and no benefits, all the while getting rid
of the union. this is the worst case scenario for us and the one that bothers me the most.
Kropotkin