Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Southern California Strike: 70,000 Grocery Workers Picket
Aired October 13, 2003 - 06:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Time now, though, for a little business buzz. Contract talks between California grocery stores and their unions have failed, sending thousands of workers to the picket lines.
Carrie Lee has the latest for us live from the Nasdaq market site in New York.
Good morning -- Carrie.
CARRIE LEE, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
A lot of workers involved in this story, 70,000 grocery store workers, to be exact, at 859 grocery stores in southern and central California went on strike on Sunday. Now workers are protesting proposed wage freezes, health care and pension benefit cuts for existing workers and lower wages and benefit packages for new hires. Contracts had expired on October 5. Initially, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union started by calling the strike against Safeway's Von's chain, then rival grocers Albertson's and Ralph's responded by locking out their workers who then joined the strike as a show of solidarity.
Now the grocery stores have employed some temporary employees, but a lot of these grocery stores were pretty much empty. A lot of customers avoiding crossing those picket lines. The union is also charging that the stores are using the competitive threat of Wal-Mart as a basis for some of the proposed changes. Non-union Wal-Mart has become the biggest competition in the grocery industry in the past decade.
So affecting a lot of people, Carol. We'll see when these strikes are resolved. Hopefully for these workers, it won't take too long.
Quick check on the markets. Looks like we're going to see a positive open. That's what the early indications are for this Monday morning, anyway. In fact, the markets did end on a positive note last week for the second week in a row. You can see the Dow Jones industrials up over 1 percent, the Nasdaq up 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 up fractionally.
One stock to watch today is going to be Intel. "The Wall Street Journal" reporting on a technical conference in Silicon Valley, basically saying a lot of chip companies are expected to come out this week announcing chips that will compete with some of Intel's products. And then, of course, throughout the rest of the week, Carol, this is one of the big kickoff weeks for the profit reporting season for the third quarter.
Back to you.
COSTELLO: All right. Carrie Lee live from the Nasdaq market site, many thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 13, 2003 - 06:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Time now, though, for a little business buzz. Contract talks between California grocery stores and their unions have failed, sending thousands of workers to the picket lines.
Carrie Lee has the latest for us live from the Nasdaq market site in New York.
Good morning -- Carrie.
CARRIE LEE, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
A lot of workers involved in this story, 70,000 grocery store workers, to be exact, at 859 grocery stores in southern and central California went on strike on Sunday. Now workers are protesting proposed wage freezes, health care and pension benefit cuts for existing workers and lower wages and benefit packages for new hires. Contracts had expired on October 5. Initially, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union started by calling the strike against Safeway's Von's chain, then rival grocers Albertson's and Ralph's responded by locking out their workers who then joined the strike as a show of solidarity.
Now the grocery stores have employed some temporary employees, but a lot of these grocery stores were pretty much empty. A lot of customers avoiding crossing those picket lines. The union is also charging that the stores are using the competitive threat of Wal-Mart as a basis for some of the proposed changes. Non-union Wal-Mart has become the biggest competition in the grocery industry in the past decade.
So affecting a lot of people, Carol. We'll see when these strikes are resolved. Hopefully for these workers, it won't take too long.
Quick check on the markets. Looks like we're going to see a positive open. That's what the early indications are for this Monday morning, anyway. In fact, the markets did end on a positive note last week for the second week in a row. You can see the Dow Jones industrials up over 1 percent, the Nasdaq up 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 up fractionally.
One stock to watch today is going to be Intel. "The Wall Street Journal" reporting on a technical conference in Silicon Valley, basically saying a lot of chip companies are expected to come out this week announcing chips that will compete with some of Intel's products. And then, of course, throughout the rest of the week, Carol, this is one of the big kickoff weeks for the profit reporting season for the third quarter.
Back to you.
COSTELLO: All right. Carrie Lee live from the Nasdaq market site, many thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
