GILROY
– After Gilroyan Pam Robasciotti caught guff for missing work
when her daughter went into labor three months prematurely, she
knew it was time to leave her job at the Gilroy Wal-Mart.
GILROY – After Gilroyan Pam Robasciotti caught guff for missing work when her daughter went into labor three months prematurely, she knew it was time to leave her job at the Gilroy Wal-Mart.
At that point, Robasciotti had already been seeking a union job at a local grocery store for the better part of three years. She had grown increasingly disenchanted with her pay and the treatment at the Arroyo Circle store and worn out from working simultaneously there and at the Gilroy Premium Outlets. But a slow economy and a lack of direct experience hindered the search – and she needed the money – so she stayed on.
Then her daughter began feeling sick. The day she went into labor, Robasciotti called the store and told supervisors she would be staying at the hospital with her that day.
She said her boss was less than understanding.
“The next day I went in and he said ‘Are you a doctor?’ ” Robasciotti said. “I said my granddaughter was being born, I’m sorry.”
Despite the bad economy – and with no alternate job lined up – she quit the store.
“She was born in July, and August first I was gone. I told my husband, ‘If I don’t have a job, I don’t have a job. I quit. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
The experience is one of the many “horror stories” the 44-year-old Safeway worker recalls from her six and one-half years at the store, and one of the reasons she joined hundreds of other union workers and representatives there Thursday to protest what will reportedly be Wal-Mart’s first foray into the grocery business in Northern California.
At least 100 people – many of them workers from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 428 and several other Bay Area unions – protested the company’s practices and potential superstore here in a carnival-like event in front of the current Wal-Mart on Camino Arroyo.
Protesters criticized the company’s labor practices and expressed fears about everything from quality of life impacts to more direct and personal worries that a Wal-Mart grocery – which does not use union labor – will threaten the existence of Gilroy’s current grocery stores while creating downward pressure on the wages and benefits workers receive there.
“Wal-Mart is a merchant of shame,” said Ron Lind, a Local 428 spokesman, told the crowd.
But while local employees were mum Thursday, Wal-Mart corporate officials have said the new store will bring jobs, one-stop shopping and beneficial competition to Gilroy.
“It’s a win-win for everybody,” said company spokeswoman Amy Hill.
Protesters wore bright yellow T-shirts and buttons with a frowning or crying Wal-Mart trademark smiley face marched back and forth in front of the store entrance. They carried signs reading “Affordable Health Care” and “Not In My Neighborhood” and chanted slogans such as “Justice, Justice at Wal-Mart” as Wal-Mart employees on breaks watched from nearby picnic tables. San Jose Assemblyman Manny Diaz spoke to the crowd from a mobile sound stage.
Wal-Mart is working to move a supersized version of its current, decade-old store into the new Newman Development Corp. regional shopping center at the junction of state Highway 152 and U.S. 101. At 220,000 square feet, the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter would be nearly twice as large as the existing store and would include a grocery store.
It would neighbor two other national-scale big-box stores: a Lowe’s Home Improvement Center and the new Costco warehouse store that opened last weekend.
Company officials say the new store would employ about 500 people – roughly double that of the current location – with about 70 percent expected to work full time.
In speeches and interviews union members and officials fired off several statistics on the company: Average Wal-Mart employees make $7.50 an hour, work 28 hours a week and earn less than half the hourly pay of workers at companies such as PW Super and Nob Hill, they said.
While Wal-Mart does offer health insurance and other benefits, nearly two-thirds of the company’s employees don’t use them because they don’t qualify or can’t afford their share of the premiums, union officials said. Instead, they tend to get their health care from public agencies at taxpayer expense, they said.
Protesters also alleged that Wal-Mart responds with threats of intimidation or firings when workers try to unionize and noted a slew of complaints for alleged gender discrimination and labor practices.
The store can offer lower prices because it underpays workers, they said.
In an interview, Robasciotti shared her personal experience at the current Gilroy store. She began at Wal-Mart in 1993, earning $4.50 an hour. When she left last year, she was making $8.75 as a “support manager,” handling problems and complaints when permanent managers and assistants are away or in meetings. She paid $65 a paycheck for her benefits and her insurance had a $30 copay, she said. She was not offered subsidized dental or vision coverage.
Wal-Mart employees often worked “off the clock” because they had no choice, she said.
“We had a big flood and we had a lot of water damage,” she said. “They called us all in to go in and clean it up off the clock. If you didn’t, it was your job.”
She estimated that she was threatened with her job – or reminded of its fragility by supervisors – roughly three-dozen times during her tenure there, for reasons ranging from a reluctance to re-enter the store after a series of bomb threats to accepting material when union organizers came around.
“We had a meeting and they told us ‘Don’t talk to them, don’t take their papers … ” she said. “The way they said it is ‘You won’t have a job.’
“Everyone is afraid in there. They’re afraid. They can’t afford to lose their jobs, especially nowadays with families to support.”
Robasciotti said in her experience men also seemed to receive higher wages than women.
“I knew a couple of men who came in as department managers and had no experience but made $4 to 5 more than I made,” she said.
Several current Wal-Mart employees declined to comment on their working conditions Thursday for an article. A store manager referred a reporter to Wal-Mart corporate offices.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Hill has said the company offers “competitive” wages – although she would not disclose specifics – and said they have opportunities to advance, noting that 65 percent of managers started in hourly positions.
“Wal-Mart pays competitive wages – we have to,” she said. “Otherwise we could not attract or retain the kind of associates we want to. I think it’s ludicrous to suggest we’re underpaying our workers.”
She said the company offers health and dental plans, 401K plans, profit sharing, stock purchase and child-care benefits. The company pays two-thirds of health premiums for full-time employees, she said, and the plan does not have a cap on benefits.
She characterized the lack of union representation as the result of choices and votes by company employees.
“Of course they (the unions) are saying that,” about alleged intimidation, she said. “They’re not going to say ‘we haven’t been able to convince them of it.’
“There’s a large frustration by union leadership that they have not been able to unionize our associates. Because of that they’ll say and do a lot of things, including anything they can to stop our growth.”
Meanwhile, the Gilroy store has contributed over $125,000 to local causes in the last three years, she said.
“We’ve been in Gilroy since 1993,” she said. “Has every other business shut down there?”
Protesters also said Thursday that the company should conduct an environmental impact report and an economic analysis showing how the new superstore would effect the city.
“We don’t think the city should be the first in Northern California to open its doors to a Super Wal-Mart without first making sure this is a good thing for Gilroy,” said Jessica Fitchen of the Greenbelt Alliance.
Hill said the company is “exploring that option right now” and is working to meet the city’s requirements. She questioned why unions have not demanded reports on the Costco or Lowe’s.
“I’m not sure what the difference in the developments is,” she said.
Bill Faus, the city’s planning manager, said the company has volunteered to commission an environmental impact report on the store.
Such reports usually concern subjects such as traffic, safety, air quality, and conversion of prime agricultural land, Faus said. Economic impacts to the city are “touched upon” but aren’t typically a major element, he said.
The company has submitted a final draft of its application for the “planned unit development” – as known in planning lingo – after responding to comments from city planners. No date has been set for the matter to go before the city’s Planning Commission.
Robasciotti said she has been at Safeway a year and a half and is making more money then she did after her time at Wal-Mart. She makes over $10 an hour as the assistant manager of the Starbucks coffee counter. For the price of her union initiation – less than $200 – and monthly dues of less than $30 a month, she said her medical, dental and vision benefits are fully covered by the company. Her copays now range from $5 to $10.
Managers are responsive and solicit feedback on what could be improved at the store, she said. If she’s sick or has a personal problem, she can take time off.
“It’s like night and day,” she said. “It’s unbelievable. Even the way they treat you – they’re there for you.”
