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.]

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.

Glassell Park-Los Angeles Store Workers Catalysts For New UFCW Campaign to Unionize Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

Workers at the Glassell Park neighborhood Fresh & Easy store in Los Angeles, who say they have an employee-majority in favor of joining the UFCW union and becoming a union shop, speak out to fellow employees at other stores in the video above, which is part of a new multi-faceted campaign to unionize the Tesco-owned chain.

Breaking Buzz - News & Analysis

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

In July of this year we broke the news that a majority of employees who work at the Fresh & Easy store at 4211 Eagle Rock Boulevard in the Glassell Park neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles, California agreed among themselves to join the UFCW union, and formally requested recognition from executives at Tesco-owned Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's corporate headquarters in El Segundo, California.

Read our story here - July 24, 2010: Employees at the Glassell Park-Eagle Rock Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in Los Angeles Seeking Union Recognition From Tesco

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, through the company's head of human resources, told the worker-majority at the Glassell Park store they would have to go through a federal government monitored open ballot election, which is what most non-union U.S. companies tell employees to do if they want to join a union, winning a majority of votes from all the employees, in order to be recognized by Tesco as a union shop. The Los Angeles store, like the other 154 small-format Fresh & Easy markets in California, Nevada and Arizona, employs 20-25 workers, not including the store manager.

Since we published our piece in July, employees at the store in Los Angeles, which was one of the first units in the chain to open three years ago, had been considering their next move.

A spokesperson for the Glassell Park store worker-majority recently told Fresh & Easy Buzz that although they still have a majority of store employees in favor of joining the UFCW union, they've decided for now they don't want to move for a union election for a variety of reasons.

Among the reasons the worker-majority has decided not to move for an election is the fact that as part of the election process, employers are allowed to bring in labor consultants (which unions refer to as union busters), who along with company executives can hold meetings with workers, where they can attempt to convince the employees to vote against unionization in the election prior to voting day. The union is also able to lobby the employees to vote for unionization as part of the election process, according to U.S. federal labor law.

The results of such an election - pro or con - are binding only for the one store. However, the outcome has a major influence on weather an entire chain remains non-union or becomes unionized. Therefore, the stakes of the outcome of such an election are high for all parties involved - Tesco's Fresh & Easy, the store employees and the UFCW union.

Instead of moving for a formal vote, the workers at the Eagle Rock Boulevard Fresh & Easy market in Los Angeles instead plan to try to convince the management of Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to recognize their majority desire to become members of the UFCW union using means other than an open ballot election - at least for the near-term.

Earlier today we reported on a new website and social media-based campaign launched today by the UFCW union. [See - December 20, 2010: UFCW Union Launches New 'Fix Fresh & Easy' Neighborhood Market Website and Social Media-Based Campaign

The campaign, called Fix Fresh & Easy, is in large part the result of the success the employees of the Glassell Park, Los Angeles, Fresh & Easy store have had in gaining a majority towards their goal of becoming a union grocery store.

The Fix Fresh & Easy website and campaign are also in large part the result of the decision the store workers have made to not seek a formal union/non-union election.

The store's employees and the UFCW union have decided for now that rather than moving for an open ballot election at the Glassell Park Fresh & Easy market, they will instead launch a multi-faceted campaign, building on the recent success of the Los Angeles store workers' success in gaining a majority.

The new Fix Fresh & Easy website and social media-based campaign is part of that multi-faceted organizational effort and public relations campaign.

On another website set up by the UFCW, FreshandEasyVoice.com, which is linked at the new Fix Fresh & Easy website, employees of the Glassell Park store have authored and posted an open letter to their fellow Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store employees, informing them they've gained a union majority at the Los Angeles store, and inviting them to join in the campaign to unionize, following the Eagle Rock Boulevard store employee model. You can read the open letter here.

FreshandEasyVoice.com, which is targeted to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store employees primarily, also offers additional organizational information and serves as a companion website to Fix Fresh & Easy.com, which is geared to a wider audience.

The tone of the store workers' letter strikes tones consistent with the new campaign to "Fix Fresh & Easy," in that it offers considerable positive comments about the grocery chain, suggesting that if it were unionized, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market would then be even better than it already is.

This is a new approach from the UFCW union in two ways. First, unlike its ongoing campaign over the last three years, this new, element takes a much more positive and consultative approach. It's our analysis that this is the case in part because the new focus is employee-led, building on the ability of the Glassell Park Fresh & Easy store employees gaining a majority in favor of unionization.

This employee-led element, along with the new focus on "Fixing Fresh & Easy," could mark a significant turning point for the UFCW in its three-year effort to organize employees of United Kingdom-based Tesco's 155-store fresh food and grocery chain.

The UFCW union has been criticised by a fair number of shoppers for some of its organizational tactics, like heavy store picketing, which the union doesn't plan on stopping although it's doing it much less frequently than it did in the past, suggesting Tesco is a purveyor of unsafe food, based on past cases of outdated products being discovered in its stores in the United Kingdom, and other more aggressive tactics. The UFCW has said it's had to use these tactics because Tesco has been spending tons of money and playing hardball in its fight to prevent the stores from being unionized, despite public statements from company executives saying that if the employees want a union it's up to them to vote on in.

It's too early to tell if the new focus, adding a more positive element to the traditional organizational tactics, will work. But one thing is for sure: The new developments at the end of 2010 mark the beginnings of renewed efforts by the UFCW union to organize Fresh & Easy store workers, as well as to build support for those efforts among various stakeholders, including Tesco shareholders, the media and shoppers. And as we reported earlier today, the UFCW union plans to put an added focus on organizing Fresh & Easy store employees beginning fairly early in 2011.

Stay tuned. Fresh & Easy Buzz will be covering the UFCW-Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market unionization topic and issue closely, along with offering extensive analysis, as we've been doing for three years.

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.

Employees at the Glassell Park-Eagle Rock Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in Los Angeles Seeking Union Recognition From Tesco

A group of employees at the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store (pictured above) at 4211 Eagle Rock Boulevard in the Glassell Park neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles, California, say they have or are close to having a majority of store workers in agreement that they want to join the United Foods & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union.

The store was one of the first six Fresh & Easy units opened by Tesco on November 8, 2007.

A number of the store's employees met with Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market executives at corporate headquarters in El Segundo, California on March 26, and requested to be recognized as a union store. Tesco has thus far denied the Glassell Park store workers' request, which isn't uncommon for a company to do when employees make such a request informally.

The store employees are working with representatives of the Los Angeles UFCW union local to eventually hold an up or down vote of store workers to become a union shop. There are numerous steps that must first be taken, however. One of those steps was the attempt on March 26 of this year to get recognition from Tesco's Fresh & Easy.

Tesco's official position on becoming unionized is that "it's up to the Fresh & Easy employees" to decide if that's what they want. However, it's clear to those involved, as well as to close observers, that Tesco doesn't want Fresh & Easy unionized, which is a position they have a right to hold, just as other non-union food and grocery retailing companies like Walmart, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Market and others do.

Additionally, at Tesco's annual meeting earlier this month, CEO Terry Leahy spoke out publicly for the first time we're aware of on the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market unionization issue, as we reported in this July 5, 2010 story - Verbal Fireworks at Tesco's 2010 Sharholders' Meeting in London.

Below (in italics) is the exchange at the shareholders meeting this month between the UFCW union's Dempsey and Tesco CEO Terry Leahy, as described in our July 5 piece:

Then the really colorful verbal fireworks started - the Tesco 2010 AGM verbal equivalent of yesterday's huge Macy's Fourth of July fireworks display in New York City.

Bill Dempsey, director of the UFCW union's Capital Stewardship Program, stepped to the microphone and charged Tesco's senior management of taking a "litigious, divisive approach" in the U.S. with its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and refusing to meet with the UFCW, which represents 1.3 million retail grocery store workers and employees at allied businesses in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

Dempsey, who's last name happens to be the same as that of the late and famous Irish-American boxer, Jack Dempsey, who's nickname was the "The Manassa Mauler," then counter-punched, saying: “If the Tories and the Lib Dems can agree to form a government, why can’t the [Tesco] management agree to one meeting with the union?" he asked the board.

Apparently Dempsey's comments got Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy's Irish up. Feeling his steel cut oats, Leahy replied: "Your union [UFCW] has never welcomed Tesco to the US. You opposed Tesco from day one, and you have gone on opposing and obstructing. This is no basis for a partnership."

Leahy then went on to tell Bill Dempsey, who is no shrinking Irish shamrock himself, that Tesco has "excellent relations" with its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market employees in the U.S., who - he added with emphasis - don't wish to join the UFCW union.

This is the very first time Tesco CEO Leahy has spoken out in such a public forum on the Fresh & Easy-UFCW issue in any length, beyond saying: "It's up to our employees to decide if they want to join a union in the U.S." It appears Sir Terry has now determined that Fresh & Easy's store-level workers have decided they don't want to join the UFCW, at least based on his response to Bill Dempsey's question at Friday's shareholder meeting.

In the case of the group of employees at the Eagle Rock Boulevard Fresh & Easy store, who requested union recognition in March, it's obviously not the case not that they don't want to join the union.

Additionally, the Glassell Park/Los Angeles neighborhood store isn't the first one to request union recognition from Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's senior management, led by Tesco director and Fresh & Easy CEO Tim Mason.

That honor goes to the employees of the Fresh & Easy store at 16672 Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach, California. The workers at that store requested recognition in mid-2008. [See - September 17, 2008: Store Workers at Huntington Beach Fresh & Easy Demand Union Recognition From Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and October 2, 2008 Tesco Fresh & Easy Denies Huntington Beach Store Employees Request to Be Recognized As A Union Store; Next Step Likley to Be Open Ballot Election] No employee open ballot election has yet taken place at the Huntington Beach Fresh & Easy market.

On September 26 we reported in this story - "News & Analysis: Employees At Two More Fresh & Easy Grocery Stores Could Soon Request UFCW Union Recognition From Tesco's Fresh & Easy," - that workers at two additional Fresh & Easy stores were in the process of preparing to request recognition as a union shop. The Glassel Park neighborhood Fresh & Easy market at 4211 Eagle Rock Boulevard in Los Angeles is one of those two stores. It's been nearly two years since our report but the store workers' have persisted in working towards their goal.

The employee group at the Glassell Park Fresh & Easy store appears determined, working with the UFCW, to fight to become a union shop. In fact, store workers have been working to build support among numerous customers and members of the neighborhood as part of their campaign.

The UFCW local, working with the employees, is also putting a significant amount of its organizational energy into the campaign to obtain recognition from Tesco for the store.

The union believes the key to unionizing Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is to get at least one store recognized as a union shop, based on the majority of the store's workers agreeing to be unionized. Once that happens, union representatives think other stores will fall in a domino-like fashion. But it's been a hard slog. And it's far from universal among the employees at the 159 Fresh & Easy stores that they desire union representation.

However, we've been covering the Fresh & Easy unionization issue since the beginning, in late 2007. And the employees at the Glassell Park store are among the most determined group of workers we've seen thus far in terms of being determined to obtain union recognition from Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

[Reader Resources: Readers, Click here and here to read past stories in Fresh & Easy Buzz on the Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market/UFCW union topic and issue. Use the "Older Posts/Newer Posts" links at the bottom of the pages to view additional pages/posts. Also, note the story links at the end of various stories.

An additional aspect of the UFCW union-Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market unionization topic and issue involves the bringing of labor law violation cases before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by the union and two Fresh & Easy store employees. The UFCW also brought a case against Fresh & Easy's meat supplier, 2 Sisters Food Group, which was privately-owned but was recently bought out by Tesco. See our stories about each of these cases below:

June 20, 2010: NLRB Judge Rules Against Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Spring Valley CA Store Labor Law Violation Case

March 4, 2010: Aministrative Law Judge Finds Tesco's Fresh & Easy Violated Labor Relations Act in Ex-Store Employee, UFCW Union Complaint

June 20, 2010: NLRB Judge Rules Against Key Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group' in Labor Relations Violations Case.

June 21, 2010: The Missing Link in Tesco's Purchase of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Meat Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group'