Execs, Employees and the UFCW Union: A Look Under (Tesco) Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's 'Hood'

News/Analysis/Commentary

Tesco, the owner of 175-store El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, is launching what CEO Philip Clarke calls a new "Vision and Strategy" for the global retailing chain, which has operations in 14 countries and is the third-largest retailer in the world, based on annual sales. (See the story below on the blog or click here to read it.)

But in California (where Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is headquartered), Nevada and Arizona where the chain's175 stores are, the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union and a group of Fresh & Easy store-level employees are continuing a strategy started last year.

Dueling strategies

The strategy, which is designed to help the workers and UFCW unionize the Tesco-owned grocery chain, is called "Fix Fresh & Easy, which is a multi-media - advertising, public relations and social media - focused campaign designed to draw attention to Tesco's financial struggle with its U.S fresh food and grocery chain and to offer to "assist" the retailer in the struggle if it will sit down with workers and union representatives and talk about unionizing Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Tesco reported a $300 million loss for Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in April, for its 2010/11 fiscal year, which ended February 26, 2011, on sales of about $818 million.

Tesco's store-level employees in the United Kingdom, where it's the largest food, grocery and general merchandise retailer with an about 30% national food and grocery sales market share, are unionized.

The "Fix Fresh & Easy" campaign's latest just-out media effort is a brief (2.40 minute) video featuring a number of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market employees talking about why the work for the Tesco-owned chain and why they want to be affiliated with the UFCW union. [You can view the video, "Fresh & Easy Employees Speak Out," here.]

All but one of the Fresh & Easy employees featured in the video work in the grocer's stores and at its fresh foods' kitchen, which is located at its distribution center complex in Riverside County, (Southern) California, according to the producer of the video and a representative of the employee group. The other employee in the video works at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's corporate headquarters office in El Segundo, (Southern), California.

The pro-unionization employee group, in partnership with the UFCW union, has been kicking-up its activities anotch or two vis-a-vis Fresh & Easy over the last couple months with its efforts.

Most recently, the Fresh & Easy worker group spoke out about Tesco's $300-million loss with Fresh & Easy for the 2010/11 fiscal year, as we reported and detailed on April 20: Pro-Union Workers' Group and UFCW Union Speak Out On Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's $300 Million-Plus Loss.

A couple weeks earlier, in early April 2011, the UFCW union and the Fresh & Easy employee group, along with other supporters, held pro-union rallies at 25 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store across California, as we reported and wrote about here - UFCW Union, Activists and Employees Hold Pro-Union Rallies at 25 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in California.

The employee group has asked for meetings with the appropriate senior executives at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in order to discuss with them why they want a union at the Tesco-owned chain.

Thus far no such meetings between the employees and any senior executives have been granted by Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason.

The CEO's of Tesco and its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market have said since the UFCW union started organizing at the first batch of Fresh & Easy stores in late 2007 that it's up to the workers if they want a union, saying that if they do then they can call an election as detailed under National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules and U.S. labor laws.

The pro-unionizaton employee group, who's leaders work at the Fresh & Easy grocery market on Eagle Rock Boulevard in Los Angeles' Glassell Park neighborhood, haven't called for an election at the store - and they tell us they don't plan to do so anytime in the near future. The reason: They say they feel Fresh & Easy's management will spend large sums of money and do whatever it takes legally to prevent a majority vote at the store for unionization.

"We have many concerns about our health and safety at work, how the company has treated us when we've tried to unionize and the company's struggles to succeed in America," the three leaders of the pro-unionization employee group - Michael Acuna, Carlos Juares and Lisa Austin - told us in an e-mail reply.

"All we are asking for is a fair chance for the workers at Fresh & Easy to create a better place to work and to make this company successful. This company [Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market] is losing money hand over fist and will continue to until they work with us workers, the community and their customers to succeed in a uniquely America market. We feel that this company could be a great place to work and so we want them to stick around and succeed for future generations," Acuna, Juares and Austin said.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy has said in a number of public statements that if such an election were called, it would follow NLRB guidelines.

But it's also highly unlikely, based on our research and reporting, that at present a majority of the employees at the Glassell Park Fresh & Easy store would vote in favor of unionization if an election were held today. A couple of the pro-union employee group leaders said as much at the April rallies noted above.

Some Fresh & Easy store employees, in concert with the UFCW union, have filed cases against the grocery chain with the NLRB. We've covered those cases closely. You can read that coverage and analysis here.

Stakeholders: Execs & employees

Fresh & Easy's senior management team and the Fresh & Easy employees - both those who are pro-union and those who ether don't care one way or another or don't want a union, which based on our research currently comprises the majority of Fresh & Easy workers - have different objectives to achieve in their respective jobs. But the company and the employees are directly linked economically.

If you open the hood of the car (in this case Fresh & Easy is the car) and look real close inside, as American billionaire and former (early 1990's) candidate for President Ross Perot used to like to say, the two stakeholder groups have a directly related common interest - economics - in the form of jobs, for both the Fresh & Easy executives and the rank-and-file employees.

For example, if Tesco closes up shop with its Fresh & Easy chain because it can't turn a profit, the employees lose because they are out of jobs. And very few of them will be able to find jobs with unionized grocery chains like Kroger and Safeway in the current sour economy, and probably not even when it improves because these chains aren't doing much new hiring.

Pulling the Fresh & Easy plug for Tesco would obviously be a huge loss for the United Kingdom-based retailer - not just of money (around $1.2 billion if it pulled the plug today, based on our estimates) but also of prestige, as well as pride.

Not succeeding in America after the way Tesco talked about how it would "revolutionize" grocery shopping inth U.S with Fresh & Easy and the like would and should be a monumental embarrassment for Terry Leahy, Tim Mason (and now Philip Clarke) and the other Tesco executives in charge of the venture if the grocery chain fails.

Stakeholders: The union

The UFCW is a bit more interesting case in terms of its place among the three stakeholders - Tesco, the employees and the union - in a strategic win-lose scenario analysis.

The union's big win will be if Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market becomes a union grocer. That means more members and increased revenue in the form of union dues for the UFCW.

Those Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market employees who want union representation would share in this win with the UFCW.

A unionized Fresh & Easy also means one of the faster-growing chains in California, Nevada and Arizona in terms of new store growth would jump from the non-union camp - which includes key chains  in the three states  like Kroger's Ralphs, Fry's and Smiths; Safeway Stores, Albertsons, Stater Bros., Save Mart, Raley's and others - and part company from the non-union chain camp - which includes key players in the three states like Walmart, Target, Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's, Sprouts Farmer Market, Sunflower Farmers Market and a number of others.

But unlike Tesco and the employees of Fresh & Easy, the UFCW also gets a win if Tesco pulls the plug on its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain, and ceases doing business in California, Nevada and Arizona.

Why: Because although Tesco is losing semi-truck trailers' worth of money with Fresh & Easy, it, like all the other non-union food and grocery retailers, is taking business from the union chains like Kroger and Safeway, as well as putting price-pressure on the chains because Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Walmart, Trader Joe's and and most of the other non-union chains have forced the union grocers to lower prices in order to compete.

Therefore, from a stakeholder strategic analysis perspective, it's better for the UFCW to have Tesco's Fresh & Easy gone than it is to have it remain and continue to be non-union, even though the union's bigger goal is to have it as a unionized grocery chain, like those noted above.

The elimination of one or more non-union competitors is a plus for the union chains, obviously. Less competition and price-pressure, although Kroger, Safeway and the other unionized grocers would rather it be Walmart, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods or Target most likely - all bigger threats than Tesco's Fresh & Easy is at this stage of the game.

A close look under the "hood"

But as of today, we don't see Tesco's Fresh  Easy becoming a union grocery chain anytime in the foreseeable future.

We do see, in our analysis, an about 50% chance Tesco CEO Philip Clarke will pull the plug on Fresh & Easy before the end of Tesco's 2012/13 fiscal year, which comes to a close February 2013.

Clarke and Tesco have said that's when it will break-even with Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market. And if Tesco doesn't break-even or come very close (in the $50-$75 million loss range) to breaking-even with Fresh & Easy by then, we suggest there's a 90% chance it will fold up shop in America come early 2013 or shorly before then.

One constant with successful grocery chains tends to be the key stakeholders, particularly management and employees, not only are on the same team but share pretty much the same overall strategies. When that is the case - think non-union Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market, for example - external stakeholders like labor unions and others tend to have little or no influence in the game.

The jury is still out on what influence the UFCW union will have at Tesco's Fresh & Easy. But if you compare the management/labor and union organizing climate that exists at Fresh & Easy with what's going on (or not going on) at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, where the union has made virtually no in roads to date despite decades of trying and where their are no organized pro-unionization employee groups to speak of, it's fair to ask if one of Tesco's major problems with Fresh & Easy might be found in the way senior management has structured the chain's human resource and organizational culture and management.

The CEO's of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market spend little time concerning themselves with unionization issues. Both chains, like Tesco's Fresh & Easy, want to and strive to remain non-union. But for over three years Tim Mason, the CEO of Fresh & Easy, has spent a good deal of his time dealing with the question and issue of remaining non-union or becoming a union chain.

Beyond whatever side a person takes on the union/non-union grocery chain issue at Tesco's Fresh & Easy, it's worth taking a deeper analytical look at what, besides the fact the UFCW wants to unionize the chain and a group of employees wants union representation, might possibly be more fundamental reasons - taking a close look under Fresh & Easy's "hood" - for why Tesco finds itself the main target among all the non-union chains in the Western U.S. The close look should be taken at both Fresh & Easy's senior management - is it doing all it can from a management/labor relations and policy perspective? - and the UFCW union - would it prefer a failed Fresh & Easy to a non-union one?

Reader Resource

[Read our extensive coverage and analysis since 2008 about Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, the UFCW union and related management-labor topics and issues at the following links: UFCW union UFCW, Fix Fresh and Easy, food retailing and organized labor, Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market, labor relations, National Labor Relations Act, Tesco plc.]

Pro-Union Workers' Group and UFCW Union Speak Out On Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's $300 Million-Plus Loss



The billboard above, at the 405-Freeway (southbound near Century Boulevard) in Southern California, is part of the UFCW's campaign to unionize Fresh & Easy.

 News/Analysis

A group of store-level workers who've banned together to organize fellow employees and unionize Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market reacted this morning to Tesco's report yesterday that the United Kingdom-based retailer lost a whopping $307 million at its El Segundo, California-based fresh food and grocery chain in its 2010/11 fiscal year, whch ended February 26, 2011.

The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market employee group, led primarily by workers at the Tesco-owned chain's store on Eagle Rock Boulevard in Los Angeles' Glassell Park neighborhood, said this morning in a statement released by the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union that, as employees, they're "very concerned" over the $300 million-plus in losses Fresh & Easy sustained in Tesco's 2010/11 fiscal year,

As we reported yesterday, Tesco's Fresh & Easy lost about $307 million, on sales of about $818 million, in its 2010/11 fiscal year, which ended on February 26, 2011. (Note: You will see slightly different loss numbers reported in the millions, depending on the publication doing so. That's because Tesco reports its financial numbers in British pounds. Therefore, the numbers can vary slightly depending on conversion rate use and timing.)

The employee group also takes Fresh & Easy's continued poor performance directly to the corner office in El Segundo, saying: "Tesco Director and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Chief Executive Officer Tim Mason has refused to work with union and community groups to improve Fresh & Easy stores and make them more successful in their communities. Tesco's Fresh & Easy stores have suffered losses every year since the U.S. grocery chain was launched in 2007, and have never posted a profit in the U.S."

"Even after four years of losses for Fresh & Easy stores, Tesco paid Tim Mason around $7 million last year," said worker Lisa Austin. “We’re struggling to survive and make our stores a success on minimal wages and unaffordable health care, but he’s making millions while Fresh & Easy fails. It doesn’t make any sense." [Click here to read a series of stories about Mason's compensation. At the linked page you can click on the older posts/newer posts links at the bottom for additional stories on the subject.]

Austin, who's one of the leaders of the store-level employee group working with the UFCW to organize Fresh & Easy's workers, recently spoke at an April 5, 2011 rally to unionize Fresh & Easy, which we reported on in detail here: UFCW Union, Activists and Employees Hold Pro-Union Rallies at 25 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in California.

In the joint Fresh & Easy worker-UFCW statement this morning, the union's spokesman, Evan Yates, had strong words for Tesco and its 172-store Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain, saying "the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), community groups, politicians and Fresh & Easy workers have tried to work with Tesco to make Fresh & Easy a success since the company announced its entry into the U.S. grocery market. To date, Tesco has maintained its anti-union, anti-worker and anti-community stance and launched its chain of Fresh & Easy markets in 2007 as non-union stores."

Tesco's position, which it's held since the UFCW first began organizing Fresh & Easy employees in 2007, is that if enough store-level workers want to unionize, they need to hold an election supervised by the National Labor Relations board (NLRB), per current U.S. labor law.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy has said if such an election were called. it would follow the law in carrying out its part of the process.

However, leaders of the employee pro-unionization group who work at the Glassell park neighborhood Fresh & Easy market in Los Angeles said on April 5 they haven't held an election at the store because they're concerned Tesco and Fresh & Easy might not play fair. However, a leader of the group also said on April 5 that they aren't sure if they currently have a majority of votes to go union at the Los Angeles store.

Members of the employee group are working with the UFCW on its "Fix Fresh & Easy" campaign, which is designed to put pressure on Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's CEO, Tim Mason, who's also Tesco's deputy CEO, and Tesco CEO Philip Clarke, in hope they'll have company representatives sit down with the employees and union representatives to discuss unionizing Fresh & Easy.

The UFCW has been trying  to arrange a formal sit-down with Tesco executives and CEO Tim Mason regarding Fresh & Easy for over three years. Such a meeting hasn't yet happened - and Tesco has made it fairly clear such a meeting won't be coming anytime soon.

Tesco's stores in the United Kingdom, where it's the leading food and grocery retailer, are unionized, as are many of its other divisions in Europe and Asia.

Another Fresh & Easy store worker, Shannon Harding, who works at the Spring Valley store in San Diego, summed up in the statement issued this morning what the workers group says it essentially wants: "Nobody expects to get rich working at a grocery store." But we still deserve decent pay, decent benefits and a real voice in turning this company around. Without those things, Fresh & Easy will never be a success."

Tesco's Fresh & Easy pays store- level workers a starting wage of $10 hour. Other store-level employees, called team leaders (there are generally two-to-four such employees per-store) receive a starting wage of $13 an hour. Assistant managers (one per-store; and not at all stores), which in addition to team leaders are management assistants employed at some of the Fresh & Easy stores, make $15 hour.

There are 20-25 workers per Fresh & Easy store. All of the employees work part-time (20 -to- about 32 hours week), except for the team leaders (some are part-time though), assistant managers and store managers, who are paid a salary.

Unlike unionized grocery store workers at chains like Safeway Stores, Kroger, Albertsons and others, who's pay raise schedule is determined by a multi-year contract agreement between the grocers, the UFCW union and its member-grocery clerks, hourly pay increases, and the amounts of any such increases, for store-level workers at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market are up to the company, as is the case at all non-union food and grocery retailers, like Walmart, Target, Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's and others.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market offers all store-level employees a medical insurance plan in which its pays 70% -to- 80% of the premium cost. The chain also offers workers a 401k plan with an employer contribution.

Union grocery chain workers in California make different hourly wages depending on their job descriptions in the stores. However, on average, a journey-level (about one year's full time experience) union chain grocery clerk - checks groceries, stock shelves, ect. - makes about $19 hour, and has a very strong employer-union health plan, which includes medical, dental and vision coverage. The workers contribute a portion of the monthly premium costs for the health plan.

Union grocery clerks also get a defined benefit pension depending on years of service, such as 10, 20, 30 years. The unionized chains contribute a significant portion of workers' pension money as part of the employee-retailer union contract agreement, along with a number of other types of benefits. They also pay monthly union dues to the UFCW.

Shannon Harding and the UFCW filed a case against Fresh & Easy with the NLRB in 2010. In June 2010 Administrative Law Judge William Kocol ruled in favor of Harding and the union and against Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market on the majority of complaints brought in the case. [See - June 20, 2010: NLRB Judge Rules Against Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Spring Valley CA Store Labor Law Violation Case.

On January 31, 2011, members of the NLRB's board voted to uphold the judge's decision in favor of Harding and the UFCW on the key complaints in the case. (See here.) According to the NLRB the case remains open, meaning a full and final decision is pending.

The Fresh & Easy employee group and the UFCW union have been ratcheting-up their efforts to organize store-level workers at the grocery chain, along with attempting to put greater pressure on Tesco and Fresh & Easy via the "Fix Fresh & Easy" public relations and advertising campaign.

So far the increased organizing, which also now includes efforts by UFCW locals in Northern California where Tesco has thus far opened eight Fresh & Easy markets and is set to open three new stores on April 27, hasn't produced the desired meeting - and based on our information is unlikely to do so anytime in the near future.

However, in light of yesterday's $300 million loss on about $818 million in annual sales - a loss that's about 40% of Fresh & Easy's annual revenues - this increased pressure, particularly from employees of the grocery chain, with the support of the union, comes at a bad time for Tesco CEO Philip Clarke, who inherited Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's problems when he took over as CEO from Terry Leahy, who's brainchild Fresh & Easy is.

Clarke is on the record as saying Tesco will break-even with its U.S. small-format, convenience-oriented Fresh & Easy chain by the end of its 2012/13 fiscal year, which is just 22 months from now, which as we said in this story - April 19, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Posts Biggest One-Year Loss Yet - $307 Million Loss on Sales of $818 Million (and have been saying for some time) - is a tall order.

Reader Resource

Readers: See our extensive three plus-year coverage and analysis of the union issue at Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market at (click on) the following links: Fix Fresh and Easy, Fresh and Easy Eagle Rock Blvd. store in Los Angeles, Glassell Park Fresh and Easy, UFCW, UFCW Tesco Fresh and Easy Campaign, UFCW union, union and labor issues.]

UFCW Union, Activists and Employees Hold Pro-Union Rallies at 25 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores in California

Tesco's Fresh & Easy and the UFCW Union
News/Analysis

The United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, organized labor activists, supporters and employees of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market yesterday held rallies at 25 Fresh & Easy stores in California, in a show of support for employee organizing at the 171-store Tesco-owned fresh food and grocery chain.

Yesterday was the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The rallies at the 25 Fresh & Easy stores in California were part of a national day of action in which U.S. labor unions and supporters organized a variety of different events throughout the nation. Organized labor held the day of action on the 43rd anniversary of the death of Dr. King to draw attention to trade unionism in America, particularly in light of the recent battles over collective bargaining going on in Wisconsin and Ohio between those states Governors and unionized public employees.

The UFCW and its various union locals in California deployed hundreds of activists and supporters to the 25 Fresh & Easy markets - 24 stores in Southern California and one grocery market in Northern California - yesterday afternoon, holding rallies in front of each of the stores. The pro-union activists held signs, passed out informational leaflets to shoppers and rallied the troops with speeches given by union officials local elected officials and pro-union Fresh & Easy store workers

One of the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store workers who participated in a rally was Lisa Austin, an employee of the Fresh & Easy store at 1000 W. West Covina Parkway in West Covina, California, and one of the leaders of a company-wide group of employees organizing for union representation at the grocery chain. Austin (pictured above) spoke to a crowd outside the West Covina store yesterday about the employee group's efforts to seek union representation at Fresh & Easy. (Behind Lisa Austin is Connie Leyva, president of UFCW local 1428 in Southern California. Leyva also spoke at the store event.)

Another Fresh & Easy store worker, Carlos Juarez, who works at the Fresh & Easy grocery market in Los Angeles' Glassell Park/Eagle Rock neighborhood and is another leader of the pro-union employee group, said at the rally in front of the store where he works: "We stood together for a voice on the job, and Fresh & Easy said 'No', and judges in two states and the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) have found that Fresh & Easy broke the law by illegally surveilling, threatening and interrogating workers like me who want to form a union."

What Juarez is referring to in the latter part of his statement above is a recent ruling by the NLRB's board on two labor relations cases filed against Tesco's Fresh & Easy last year by store employees and the UFCW. In the cases, Administrative Law Judges ruled in favor of the employees and the union and against Fresh & Easy on the majority of charges or findings brought against the grocery chain.

We reported on the ruling by the two judges in favor of the employees and the union in these two stories last year - March 4, 2010: Administrative Law Judge Finds Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Violated Labor Relations Act in Ex-Store Employee, UFCW Union Complaint>June 20, 2010: NLRB Judge Rules Against Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Spring Valley CA Store Labor Law Violation Case.

In the Spring Valley/San Diego store case (June 20, 2010 story linked above) the NLRB's board found on January 31, 2011 that Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market "violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by promulgating and maintaining rules prohibiting employees from talking about the union and discipline, but not other subjects, while working and by implicitly inviting employees to resign because of their protected concerted activities. The finding upheld the thrust of the decision made on June 3, 2010 by Administrative Law Judge William G. Kocol. You can view the board's January 31, 2011 decision here: (21‑CA‑38882, et al.; 356 NLRB No. 90).

Also on January 31 of this year the NLRB's board adopted the Administrative Law Judge's finding in the Las Vegas case (details in the March 4, 2010 story linked above) that the respondent (Fresh & Easy) "violated the NLRA by maintaining an over-broad no-distribution rule, interrogating employees and creating an impression of surveillance.

The NLRB's board also adopted the dismissal of allegations that two discharges violated the NLRA, finding that the respondent (Fresh & Easy) showed that the two employees would have been discharged for lawful reasons even if they had not engaged in protected activity. This was a ruling the judge made in favor of Fresh & Easy. The board upheld the finding.

The Board did not adopt the judge’s finding that the respondent cured its unlawful, company-wide no-distribution rule in September 2009, and therefore found that corporate-wide remedial notice-posting is necessary with respect to that violation. The judge ruled in favor of Fresh & Easy on this charge. However the NLRB's board overruled the judge in favor of the employee and the UFCW. You can view the board's January 31, 2011 decision here: (28-CA-22520, et al.; 356 NLRB No. 85).

The "voice on the job" that Juarez refers to in the first part of his statement has to do with a group of employees at the Eagle Rock/Glassell Park store who've been attempting so far without success to have a meeting with Fresh & Easy's senior human resources executive and/or CEO Tim Mason to discuss the employees' desire to be represented by the UFCW union, as we reported in a series of stories here in Fresh & Easy Buzz.

Tesco and Fresh & Easy's long-stated position is that if employees want to join the union they should call for an election as is stipulated by the National Labor Relations Act. None of the employees at any of the Fresh & Easy stores, in cooperation with the UFCW, has done so to date.

The Glassell Park employees, who at one time said they had a majority of store workers in favor of joining the union, recently said they have no current plans to call for an election at the store.

Juarez was joined by fellow Glassell Park Fresh & Easy store worker Michael Acuna, who's also a leader of the pro-union employee group, and Rabbi Jonathan Klein, who's with Southern California's Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice group. Rabbi Klein and Acuna also spoke at the rally outside the store. [The three men are pictured in the photograph above. Left-to-right: Rabbi Klein (in suit), Michael Acuna (in the Fresh & Easy shirt) and Carlos Juarez (far right, black shirt).

Explaining why he was attending the event, Rabbi Klein said: "We want Fresh & Easy to know we don’t care how big you are or how much money you have. In our state, in our country, in our community we respect the rights of workers to organize and we stand with Fresh & Easy workers who want a real voice on the job."

Yesterday's pro-union events at the 24 Fresh & Easy stores in Southern California and the Walnut Creek unit in the San Francisco Bay Area (see the list of the 25 stores at the end of this piece) is the largest single day of store-level activity the UFCW has organized at Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market since the first stores were opened in November 2007, based on our coverage of the chain, which began in late 2007.

Late last year we correctly said the UFCW would be intensifying its campaign targeting Fresh & Easy beginning in early 2011, after moderating it considerably in the last half of 2010.

The union has done just that, launching its "Fix Fresh & Easy" public relations and advertising campaign in the beginning of 2011 and expanding it over the last few months, as we've report on here, along with conducting other types of actions targeting Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which is owned by United Kingdom-based Tesco, the third-largest food and grocery retailer in the world and the UK's market share leader, accounting for a whopping 30% of all food and grocery sales in the nation. Tesco's stores in the UK are unionized.

Additionally, yesterday's rallies at the 25 Fresh & Easy stores marks the beginning of more intense campaigning, organizing and events to come throughout the spring and into the summer, including in Northern California where the grocer has so far this year opened seven stores.

For example, as we reported on March 25 in this story - UFCW Union Local Sets Up Picket Line at Just-Opened Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in Modesto, California - Northern California local UFCW 8-Golden State has set up an informational picket line at the Fresh & Easy market in Modesto, California which opened on March 23.

Further, another Northern California local, Local 5, is conducting random informational leafleting at a few of the five Northern California Fresh & Easy stores the grocer has opened thus far this year in the San Francisco Bay Area, such as the store in Pacifica. [See - March 9, 2011: Northern California Launch: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Opens Store in Pacifica Today.]

The increased activity by the UFCW and the group of pro-unionization Fresh & Easy store-level workers come at about the same time United Kingdom-based Tesco is preparing to report its fiscal year 2010/11 financials, including how much the global retailer lost in the fiscal year at its Fresh & Easy USA chain of 171 stores.

We say loss because Tesco has already said it estimates reporting a loss for Fresh & Easy in the $250-$259 million range for the fiscal year, roughly the same amount it lost in the previously 2009/10 fiscal year, despite having a considerable increase in sales, mostly from new stores opened, for the 2010/11 year, which ended in February.

Tesco has a new CEO, former head of European /Asia operations and information technology chief Philip Clarke, who replaced Terry Leahy, who retired last month. Fresh & Easy's CEO Tim Mason, who was also named Tesco group deputy CEO to Clarke in March, is under the gun to get the money-losing U.S. chain to break-even by the end of Tesco's 2012/13 fiscal year, which is about two years away. Based on Fresh & Easy's current performance and strategy, doing so is going to be a tough slog for Clarke, Mason and company.

The increased efforts by the union to organize store-level workers at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market won't make achieving that goal any easier for Tesco, although the El Segundo, California-based grocer's problems go far beyond a union organizing effort by a group of employees and the UFCW.

The UFCW rally outside the Fresh & Easy store at 1631 Highland Avenue in San Bernardino, California drew a large crowd of activits and supporters for union organizing at Tesco's Fresh & Easy.

The union issue is compounded by the fact that the current contract between the UFCW locals in Southern California and the regions unionized grocery chains, which include the four market share-leading grocer's in Southern California - Kroger's Ralphs, Safeway's Vons, Albertsons and Stater Bros - has expired.

The chains and their respective unionized workers are working on a day-to-day basis under the old contract. Either party has the right to terminate the day-to-day arrangement by giving the other party 72-hours notice.

As of today, no progress has been made in negotiations between the UFCW and Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons, which is owned by Supervalu, Inc. Stater Bros. is negotiating with the union separately, as is local chain Gelsons.

In fact, the three chains only submitted their first proposal to the UFCW on March 29. The Southern California union locals have essentially pronounced the proposal, which includes various "givebacks" involving premium-type (holidays, Sundays, ect.) wages and benefits, dead on arrival. Already some of the unions are telling employees that a strike vote may have to be made if progress isn't made in the next couple weeks, for example.

The UFCW is under pressure as part of the contract talks because the unionized chains say they are losing market share to non-union chains like Walmart, Target, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Market, Sprouts Farmers Market and Fresh & Easy, which is true. As a result, expect to see intensified organizing by the UFCW not only vis-a-vis Tesco's Fresh & Easy but also involving a couple of the other chains noted above.

One of the more aggressive UFCW union local presidents in Southern California is Connie Leyva (pictured above in front of the West Covina Fresh & Easy store and behind store employee Lisa Austin in the earlier photo), who's also the president of the California Labor Federation, the highly politically connected umbrella organization for organized labor in the Golden State.

Governor Jerry Brown is counting on the Federation's support for his budget balancing plan and on other issues, for example.

Additionally, organized labor is also a crucial supporter of Democrats in California, which hold a majority in both the State Assembly and State Senate. Assembly Speaker John Perez is a former official with the UFCW union.

Leyva attended the rally at the West Covina store yesterday and had strong words for Tesco and Fresh & Easy's senior management, saying: "When Dr. King passed away, he was standing up for striking workers in Memphis. We honor his memory today by standing with organizing workers at Fresh & Easy and saying our communities support and honor the right to organize."

For the UFCW union and the pro-union Fresh & Easy store employees however, the bottom line is that until they can hold an win an election at one of the grocer's 171 stores, the probability of becoming unionized is as close to zero as can be had. Tesco has no interest in talking with the UFCW about becoming a union shop, evidenced not only by our source information but by the fact the union has been asking its and Fresh & Easy's senior executives to do so for four years.

We don't see such an election happening at any Fresh & Easy store this year. Therefore the employees' and union's thrust will continue to be through public relations, advertising, picketing and events like the action held yesterday at the 25 stores in California. In other words, don't look for a resolution to the Fresh & Easy-union issue anytime soon.

Union activists and supporters rally outside of the Fresh & Easy store in Spring Valley/San Diego yesterday.

Below are the locations of the 25 Fresh & Easy stores where the rallies took place yesterday:

Alhambra - 2121 W. Main St.
Buena Park - 7880 Valley View St.
Burbank - 1615 W. Verdugo Ave.
Compton - 2175 W. Rosecrans Ave.
Glassell Park/Eagle Rock - 4211 Eagle Rock Blvd.
Fullerton - 1207 S Euclid
Harbor City - 26640 Western Ave, Suite E
Hollywood - 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
Lakewood - 4930 Paramount Blvd.
Lakewood - 5615 Woodruff Ave.
Manhattan Beach - 1700 Rosecrans Ave.
Northridge - 19350 Nordoff St.
Orange - 1803 E Chapman
Paramount - 15727 Downey Ave.
Pico Rivera - 8921 Washington Blvd.
Rancho Cucamonga - 8956 Foothill Blvd.
Rancho Cucamonga - 12188 Foothill Blvd.
Rancho Cucamonga - 829 W Foothill, Upland
Rialto - 2015 N Riverside Ave
San Bernardino - 1631 E Highland Ave
Spring Valley/San Diego - 96655 Campo Rd.
Van Nuys - 15230 Vanowen St.
Vista - 945 E Vista Pkwy
Walnut Creek - 1821 Ygnacio Valley Rd.
West Covina - 1000 W. West Covina Pkwy

Related Stories

[Readers: See our extensive coverage and analysis of the union issue at Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market at (click on) the following links: Fix Fresh and Easy, Fresh and Easy Eagle Rock Blvd. store in Los Angeles, Glassell Park Fresh and Easy, UFCW, UFCW Tesco Fresh and Easy Campaign, UFCW union, union and labor issues.]

'The (UFCW Union's) Repairman' Visits Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Corporate Office...to Deliver A Toilet

Tesco's Fresh & Easy and the UFCW Union

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union has taken its 'Fix Fresh & Easy' media campaign directly to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's corporate headquarters in El Segundo, California, in a surprise video featuring "The Repairman," a current and former Fresh & Easy employee and - a toilet.

In a recent story about the UFCW union's expansion of its 'Fix Fresh & Easy' media campaign, we introduced Fresh & Easy Buzz readers to "The Repairman," a union worker who's appearing on a billboard in Southern California and in ads the UFCW is running on Facebook. [Read the story at -January 31, 2011: UFCW Union Launches Outdoor Billboard and Facebook Ads as Part of its 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Media Campaign

We also noted in the January 31 story that "The Repairman" would soon be making another appearance, in a new video produced by the UFCW union.

The new video, "Fresh & Easy Flushes Money Down the Toilet," stars "The Repairman" and has a current Fresh & Easy store worker and former employee in supporting roles.

But as often happens in such surprise videos, the UFCW union's "The Repairman" ends up sharing the lead role in the brief video, which takes place at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's corporate office in El Segundo, California, with John Stokes, who is the director of security and loss prevention (the moustached man in the white Fresh & Easy logo shirt) for Tesco's Fresh & Easy.

The toilet, which "The Repairman" and his team attempt to deliver to Tesco deputy CEO and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason, also takes on a starting role in the video. In fact, without the prop (which is a working toilet), there would be no video at all - or premise.

Without the porcelain throne "The Repairman" also wouldn't have a ready-made chair to sit on while waiting for who he thinks will be Mr. Mason - but instead ends up being head of security John Stokes, who, as you will see in the video at the top, finds no humor in the premise, or in "The Repairman's" persistence in wanting to install the new toilet.

According to a UFCW union spokesperson, "The [video] concept was a collaborative effort between [some] workers at Fresh & Easy and staff at the UFCW. They wanted to humorously convey the point that Fresh & Easy is struggling and refusing to ask for help. The goal was to get customers, other workers and Fresh & Easy to think about working cooperatively to get the company to succeed."

After watching the video, you might notice someone failed to inform Fresh & Easy's head of corporate loss prevention and security about the humorous aspect of the video. The receptionist looks like she got it though.

Related Stories

January 31, 2011: UFCW Union Launches Outdoor Billboard and Facebook Ads as Part of its 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Media Campaign

December 20, 2010 - UFCW Union Launches New 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Neighborhood Market Website and Social Media-Based Campaign

December 20, 2010: UFCW Union Launches New 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Neighborhood Market Website and Social Media-Based Campaign

December 20, 2010: Glassell Park-Los Angeles Store Workers Catalysts For New UFCW Campaign to Unionize Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

October 6, 2010: The Daily Show Catches Las Vegas-Based UFCW Union Local 711 In Labor Relations 'Catch 22'

October 5, 2010: UFCW President Joe Hansen's Chairmanship of Change to Win Adds Fire Power to Union's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Campaign

September 30, 2010: Self-Service-Only Checkout Safe at California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores Thanks to Governor's Veto Pen

Also, see (click on) the following links - F-E Employees and union issue, Fresh and Easy Eagle Rock Blvd. store in Los Angeles, Glassell Park Fresh and Easy, UFCW, UFCW Tesco Fresh and Easy Campaign, UFCW union, union and labor issues - for additional related stories.

UFCW Union Launches Outdoor Billboard and Facebook Ads as Part of its 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Media Campaign

The billboard pictured above is on the 405-Freeway in Southern California.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy and the UFCW Union

The United Food & Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) has expanded its "Fix Fresh & Easy"media campaign from its initial website and social media efforts - Twitter feed, Facebook page and YouTube channel - to outdoor advertising and targeted advertisements on Facebook.

Additionally, the union has launched a new video on its YouTube channel, which is tied-in to the advertising campaign.

In a story on December 20, 2010 - UFCW Union Launches New 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Neighborhood Market Website and Social Media-Based Campaign - we reported that the UFCW union was launching its "Fix Fresh & Easy" Neighborhood Market campaign, which is a multi-media-based effort to draw attention to what the grocery clerks' union says are numerous problems at the Tesco-owned, El Segundo, California-based fresh food and grocery chain, which has had operating losses of over $500 million so far since the first Fresh & Easy markets opened in November 2007.

"Fix Fresh & Easy" is the latest effort by the UFCW to unionize store-level employees at United Kingdom-based Tesco's 156 Fresh & Easy markets in California, southern Nevada and metro Phoenix, Arizona, something the union, which represents about 1.5 million retail grocery clerks and workers in allied industries in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, has been attempting to do beginning before the first stores opened in late 2007.

It's also a new tact for the UFCW union, in that "Fix Fresh & Easy" takes a "consultative" approach, pointing out what the union and some Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store workers say are problems with how the chain is operated, then offering various solutions (fixes) to those problems, often times using employees of the chain to deliver those messages via various forms of media.

Outdoor advertising

The UFCW union has kicked-off the new outdoor advertising element of its "Fix Fresh & Easy campaign with a billboard (pictured at top), which is located on the busy 405-Freeway (southbound near Century Boulevard) in Southern California. The billboard is not only located in a spot that has some of the highest commuter traffic counts in Southern California, its also in a place that's nearby a number of Tesco's Fresh & Easy stores in the region.

The majority - 93 stores - of Tesco's 156 Fresh & Easy markets are located in Southern California. Fourteen stores are in the Bakersfield and Fresno (seven in each region) metro areas in California's Central Valley. The remaining stores are in the metro Phoenix, Arizona region - 28 units - and metro Las Vegas, Nevada, where Tesco has 21 Fresh & Easy stores.

The 405-Freeway location is the first billboard in the union's outdoor advertising campaign, and currently the only one. However, a spokesman for the UFCW union tells Fresh & Easy Buzz that additional billboards like the one pictured at top are planned for Southern California, and possibly Arizona and Nevada.

The billboard features a real union construction worker, called "The Repairman." The name plays off the "Fix Fresh & Easy" theme. The other people on the billboard with "The Repairman," wearing "Fresh & Easy Green" are Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store workers from Southern California.

The UFCW spokesman says the theme of the billboard is designed to tie-in with the union's social media-based efforts, in which it's offering ways to "Fix Fresh & Easy," the leading suggestion being for the chain to sit down with representatives of the UFCW to discuss unionizing Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store-level employees.

New video

The UFCW union has also launched a new video (see below) on YouTube, tied-in to the outdoor and Facebook advertising campaign. The less than two minute video, "Fresh & Easy Customers Speak Out," features "The Repairman." along with interviews with various Fresh & Easy store customers, discussing whether or not they will continue shopping at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in light of the unionization issue.

We asked the spokesman for the grocery clerks union to verify for Fresh & Easy Buzz that the people in the video are actual Fresh & Easy store customers. Here's what he said: "The people are real customers from [Fresh & Easy] stores across LA. They chose not to shop after being given a flyer, and then were approached and offered the opportunity to appear in the film."



Facebook ads

In addition to launching the outdoor advertising campaign with its first billboard on the 405-Freeway in Southern California, the UFCW union is also running two different ads on Facebook, as part of the popular social media site's targeted, paid advertising program.
The Facebook site ads are being run on a targeted, rotational basis to selected Facebook users, including Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market employees and customers in California, Nevada and Arizona, according to the union. (See the screenshots of the Facebook advertisements pictured above and below.) The UFCW union spokesperson says additional advertisements are being prepared to be run on Facebook as part of the campaign, adding the two current ads being started off on a "heavy" rotation," meaning they will show up frequently on the Facebook pages of the various targeted users.

More to come

The grocery clerks union is planning additional activity soon in its "Fix Fresh & Easy" media campaign, which in addition to a website, Twitter feed, Facebook page and YouTube channel, now also includes the Facebbok advertisement component and the outdoor advertising campaign.

Additionally, as we've been reporting in Fresh & Easy Buzz since 2009, the UFCW union locals in Northern California are preparing a local campaign of their own, targeted to when Tesco opens its first Fresh & Easy stores in San Jose and Danville (San Francisco Bay Area) on March 2, followed by the openings of nine other stores between March 9 and the end of April.

Although not yet announced by the grocer, two stores in San Francisco, in the Richmond and Bayview neighborhoods, are set to open in April or May, according to our sources, although those dates could change depending on if the stores are ready to open by then. [You can see the opening dates and locations of the 11 Northern California Fresh & Easy stores here.]

Fresh & Easy's response

Meanwhile, Tesco corporate director and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason has been using what you might call, borrowing from the world of diplomacy, a "soft power" approach, along with other efforts, to suggest to Fresh & Easy store employees that joining the UFCW union is not in their best interests. The program sends "Fresh & Easy Ambassadors" to the stores to talk with employees about the advantages of keeping Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market non-union. The "Ambassadors" aren't supposed to tell store workers not to organize a union, or that if they do so they will be looked on in a less than favorable light by senior management. Rather, their role is designed as a consultative or persuasive one, hence the "soft power" analogy.

Periodically CEO Mason has read reports prepared by the "Fresh & Easy Ambassadors" to corporate headquarters employees during meetings, according to sources who've been at the meetings, and has indicated he thinks the approach is working well as part of the chain's efforts to remain non-union, according to those sources.

Recent Related Stories

December 20, 2010: UFCW Union Launches New 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Neighborhood Market Website and Social Media-Based Campaign

December 20, 2010: Glassell Park-Los Angeles Store Workers Catalysts For New UFCW Campaign to Unionize Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

October 6, 2010: The Daily Show Catches Las Vegas-Based UFCW Union Local 711 In Labor Relations 'Catch 22'

October 5, 2010: UFCW President Joe Hansen's Chairmanship of Change to Win Adds Fire Power to Union's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Campaign

September 30, 2010: Self-Service-Only Checkout Safe at California Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Stores Thanks to Governor's Veto Pen

Also, see (click on) the following links - F-E Employees and union issue, Fresh and Easy Eagle Rock Blvd. store in Los Angeles, Glassell Park Fresh and Easy, UFCW, UFCW Tesco Fresh and Easy Campaign, UFCW union, union and labor issues - for additional related stories.

UFCW Union Launches New 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Neighborhood Market Website and Social Media-Based Campaign

The UFCW union has created the video above, which it calls: "An xtranormal conversation at Fresh & Easy headquarters," as part of its new Fix Fresh & Easy social media-based campaign. The brief video features the Robot Theater robots, the voices of which you may have heard before.

Breaking Buzz

[Related Story - December 20, 2010: Glassell Park-Los Angeles Store Workers Catalysts of New UFCW Campaign to Unionize Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market]

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union today launched a new website and social media-based campaign called Fix Fresh & Easy as part of its efforts to unionize store workers at Tesco's 155 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market food and grocery stores in California, Nevada and Arizona.

The new Fix Fresh & Easy website, along with a companion Facebook page, Twitter.com feed and YouTube channel, will focus on what the union believes to be wrong with how Fresh & Easy is operated, along with suggesting ways in which it thinks those problems can be "fixed."

We first learned about the new website and companion social media sites this morning, when we discovered the Fix Fresh & Easy Twitter feed had followed our Fresh & Easy Buzz feed on Twitter.com. (You can view our Twitter.com feed here on the blog, at the top, right.)

This morning the UFCW also posted a December 15, 2010 story from Fresh & Easy Buzz - Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's California WIC Voucher Expansion Program Stalled - as the second entry on its new Fix Fresh & Easy website, along with posting the piece on the two social media sites, with a caption saying: "Here's an easy way to fix Fresh & Easy. Accept WIC at all your locations - it's good for our community and brings in more revenue to your stores."

The premise of "Fix Fresh & Easy" is to use the various online sites to suggest ways in which Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market can be "fixed," with the central way obviously being to unionize the chain, since that's the UFCW's goal and overall objective.

The "fix or improve fresh & easy" angle is a new strategy for the UFCW in its efforts to unionize the grocer's store-level employees in California, Nevada and Arizona.

For example, in 2007 (the first Fresh & Easy stores opened in November 2007) the UFCW, which represents about 1.3 million unionized grocery store and related industry workers in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, launched a website called fresh & easy facts, in which it asks consumers to pledge not to shop at Tesco's Fresh & Easy stores because they are non-union, along with offering information as to why people shouldn't shop at the stores.

The website still exists (click here) but hasn't been updated since June 2008. For example, that's when the last article about Tesco was posted in the website's news section. Other sections of the site haven't been updated for a similar amount of time.

The tact of the new Fix Fresh & Easy website however is much different.

We're told the UFCW plans to use the site to point out various problems with how Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which continues to lose hundreds of millions of dollars annually, is operated, and to offer ways those problems can be "fixed." Readers of Fresh & Easy Buzz, which is and independent publication and isn't affiliated with the UFCW, Tesco or any other business or organization, know we have and continue to point out those many problems, often offering prescriptions for improvement, in our analysis and commentary-focused pieces in the blog.

The Fix Fresh & Easy website posting of our story about Fresh & Easy's stalled expansion of its acceptance of WIC Vouchers beyond one store, with the UFCW's caption that if the grocer accepted WIC at all its stores it not only would not only be good for the communities it serves but also good for added sales, is suggestive of the "fix" focus the UFCW plans to take with the new tactic and online sites.

If so, and we're told it is the case, it signals a change in strategy for the grocery clerks' union, in that it has decided to combine what could be a more positive, consultative approach with the use of the more traditional organizing and public relations tactics it's thus far used in its attempt to unionize Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

The new Fix Fresh & Easy website and companion social media sites come at a key time for both the UFCW and Tesco's Fresh & Easy. Tesco is preparing to launch its U.S. fresh food and grocery chain into Northern California early next year. The region, particularly the San Francisco Bay Area, has among the strongest and most aggressive food and grocery retailing locals in the United States.

These Northern California UFCW locals, as we've reported and discussed in the blog before, are planning a major campaign and organizing drive targeted at non-union Fresh & Easy beginning in early 2011, about a month or so before the first batch of 12 stores are set to open. Ten of the 12 stores are in the San Francisco Bay Area, as we've previously reported. The other two units are in nearby Vacaville and Modesto.

We've also recently learned the UFCW plans to ramp-up its overall campaign and store-level organizing efforts to unionize Fresh & Easy's store-level workers, starting early next year.

The main focus of the new efforts will be in California. But increased efforts will also take place in the metro Las Vegas, Nevada and metro Phoenix, Arizona regions, where the other Fresh & Easy markets are located. There are currently 106 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores in California (Southern California and the Bakersfield and Fresno regions in the Central Valley), 28 units in metro Phoenix and 21 markets in metro Las Vegas, for a total of 155 stores.

According to sources, the new Fix Fresh & Easy website and companion social media sites will be an integral part of the UFCW's store-level employee organizational efforts and overall campaign to unionize Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in 2011.

Stay tuned.

Reader Resource

Click here, here and here for a selection of our past stories about the UFCW union and its campaign to unionize store-level employees at Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market. Note: Click on the green "older posts" and "newer posts" links at the bottom of each page for additional posts.