Raley’s said Friday it’s offering to buy out 100 store
clerks.
The West Sacramento supermarket chain offered buyouts to 3,000
employees but will accept only the first 100 takers, said company
spokeswoman Nicole Townsend. The company employs 15,000
workers.
Courtesy of the Sacramento Bee
Raley’s said Friday it’s offering to buy out 100 store clerks.
The West Sacramento supermarket chain offered buyouts to 3,000 employees but will accept only the first 100 takers, said company spokeswoman Nicole Townsend. The company employs 15,000 workers.
She said the buyout offers will create vacancies for workers who were laid off after the December holidays in the grocer’s usual seasonal cutbacks.
But industry consultants said supermarket chains often undertake buyouts to reduce labor costs.
“If you offer a buyout to senior people, you can average down your wage costs,” said Robert Reynolds, an economist and grocery consultant in Moraga. He said Raley’s is likely feeling competitive pressure from low-cost, nonunion competitors such as Wal-Mart Stores.
Raley’s is privately held and operates 133 stores under the Raley’s, Bel Air, Nob Hill and Food Source names.
Nob Hill was owned by Gilroyan Michael Bonfante, whose family started the chain and later sold it.
Raley’s doesn’t disclose financial results. But the company did acknowledge laying off a small number of employees last month at its headquarters.
Jacques Loveall, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 8-Golden State in Roseville, said in an e-mail the union believes the buyouts are an effort “to eliminate or reduce any layoffs.”
But Townsend said Raley’s was responding to employees who expressed an interest in taking a buyout.
She said the buyouts were offered to all clerks in three job classifications: senior, head and journeyman. The company, the leading grocer in the Sacramento region, isn’t necessarily targeting its most senior employees, she said.
The offer was made to a large group – about one-fifth of the total work force – because Raley’s felt it had to make the offer to every worker in those classifications, she said.
“We wanted to be fair,” she said.
Employees are being offered nine months’ pay, she said.
