Date: Fri 06-Feb-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-Big-Y-boycott-Local-371

Full Text:

Ed Ink: Big Y: Welcome Or Boycott?

Most Newtown residents received a postcard in the mail this week from Local

371 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. It was a thank you note

of sorts, expressing appreciation for the community's support of the various

supermarkets in the area, including Grand Union and Super Stop & Shop, where

union members shop. It reminded us that we should shop in stores where "union

workers have decent wages benefits and working conditions." The card was quite

congenial, except for one thing: on the front, in big black letters, it asks

us to "Boycott Big Y."

Most everyone we know is looking forward to the opening of the Big Y

supermarket later this month, and notwithstanding the position of Local 371,

we expect the store will have plenty of business once it does open its doors.

It is not in the nature of most Newtowners to shun a newcomer to town. We tend

to welcome people and businesses, giving each a chance to find their place in

the community without prejudice or prejudgment.

Boycotts are powerful social tools used when powerful wrongs need righting.

Most of us would willingly join a boycott of a business that engaged in racial

discrimination or that employed children in sweatshop conditions either here

or abroad. In this country, we have codified our beliefs about what

constitutes fair working conditions in our labor laws, and we would willingly

turn our backs on businesses that sought to circumvent those laws.

Our laws do not require, however, that employees belong to a union. Workers

have a choice, and according to Big Y, its workers chose about 10 years ago to

decertify the union representing them and deal directly with management. The

company seems to have loyal employees and little trouble finding people eager

to work for them in a local job market that has plenty of similar job openings

in both union and non-union stores.

Big Y will have to compete for customers and for workers in the Newtown

marketplace. If the jobs they offer are deficient or unfair in some way, the

supermarket will be able to attract only the least qualified workers, which

will then affect the level of service it will be able to provide. Shoppers

will then chose to go elsewhere, and the union's case will be made.

We suspect, however, that something quite different will happen. Newtowners

will give Big Y a chance, see how it goes, and welcome a new corporate citizen

to Newtown. From the consumer's point of view, the competition should have

positive effects on the service and prices at Grand Union and Super Stop &

Shop, which will have to work extra hard to give their customers good reasons

not to shop elsewhere.

Competition in the marketplace can work to the advantage of everyone involved

-- employees and customers alike. A boycott in this case would work against

competition and could harm the interests of both workers and consumers in

Newtown. And it's not the way Newtown welcomes newcomers.