With 501 Loaves of Bread, Workers Demonstrate the Grocery Industry’s Income Gap

‘Fix the Bread Gap and Share the Success!’

Puget Sound—Members of United Food and Commercial Workers Union will do a sidewalk demonstration of the gap between CEO salaries and their wages—in loaves of bread. The event takes place Wednesday, June 18^th, 10:00 a.m. at the lower Queen Anne Safeway, 516 1st Ave W, the corner of W Republican and 1^st W.

The average grocery worker’s hourly wage ($13) multiplied by the average 26-hour work week is roughly $18-thousand a year. Meanwhile, Safeway, Albertsons’ and Kroger (parent company of QFC and Fred Meyer) paid their CEOs over $27-million last year. The average annual salary for these grocery chain’s CEOs is about $9-million.

“That’s roughly 500 to 1,” says Jackie O’Ryan, spokesperson for UFCW. “That’s quite a difference. What does that look like? Workers from the four grocery chains will use loaves of bread to illustrate the gap.”

These national chains are ranked in Fortune Magazine’s ‘Fortune 50’ and are all posting record profits. 40% of grocery workers here make less than $10 an hour and, because stores cut worker’s hours to save money, the average work week is only 26 hours.

CEO earnings for these three chains went up 216% while worker wages rose only about 6% over the last five years. The cost of living rose 13.6%. The cost of gas went up 110%. Electricity and food costs escalated. The cost of bread went up almost 20%.

Safeway workers lose a day’s pay if they call in sick, yet their company pays for the CEO’s company car, his home security system and private use of the company jet.

It takes 10 months to get a new worker’s family on health care at Fred Meyer and QFC, but their company’s CEO has an $8-million salary and a $7-million golden parachute.

Over 20,000 grocery workers represented by UFCW Locals 21, 44 and 81 in the Puget Sound region are negotiating with Albertsons’, Safeway, QFC and Fred Meyer over wages, medical benefits, family-friendly scheduling and sick leave.

This bread demonstration will be posted on YouTube after the event and the bread will be delivered to food banks.

For more information, visit www.ShareTheSuccess.org.