The big joke is the guy says he earned his salary because he had to memorize produce codes?? Spare me! I worked at a grocery store when I was in HS, made $4.40/hour, and memorized the produce codes in less than a week. I still remember the code for bananas (27!).

The strike when on for over a year and finally the chain collapsed. Management meant it... They could not pay them any more and survive. The unions killed thousands of jobs.

Then when the chain closed its doors the asshat union leaders got on television and declared victory!

Why they were not pummeled but the union members around them is something I still don't know.

Although I am a college student myself, I don't understand why college grads feel that they somehow deserve to make more than non-grads. If you're pissed about the grocery guy or the auto worker making more than you, maybe you should do what he did and join a union so you can get a fair wage and decent benefits.

Why not bring yourself up, instead of bring the grocery guy down?

My argument isn't that people with college degrees per se "deserve" more than those without. Auto mechanics, plumbers, and other skilled tradesmen make excellent wages. I'm saying that people with essentially no skills can't expect to make those kind of wages without providing benefits that exceed that to their employer. If one can hire a high school kid with no degradation in performance--or, as is increasingly happening, have the customers scan the items themselves!--then it's not a high value added job.

Unions don't create value. Simply demanding wages only works if there's no competition from non-union labor and it's a non-elastic good. Those conditions don't apply here.

Mark: I'm not sure about that particular reporter. But entry level is in the low '30s, from what I understand.

I wonder what the difference is? SoCal is obviously a high cost of living area, so it's not that. It seems very odd that the difference would be so great.

The general response, however, is 'Big Greedy Corporation Pounds Helpless Individual--Again'.

And that's reason I'm still a big fan of legal immigration...ever seen how many of them open their own business?

The only thing I can think of is lack of competition here. I'm not sure what the situation is in SoCal, but there were apparently just two stores--Safeway and Giant--with a significant presence here until recently. Even the Wal-Marts around here are pitiful.

She knew that she couldn't make that anywhere else, so she was stuck like a serf owned by both the store and the union.

Me, I came in with four years' of perimeter department experience (produce) and started at the minimum for the store, $4.85 an hour. It's heartening to know that a hard worker with experience would always be lower on the pay scale than the high school dropout who was hired a month before me.

I never did make it to the nickel raise. And the chain's out of business.

I don't care how cheap Walmart's prices are. I won't shop there because I hate the poor customer service they have due to their low wages and high rate of employee turnover. But if the supermarkets think they can compete in price with Walmart by sacrificing customer service then they are shooting themselves in their own foot.

It'll be interesting to see how many people come back.

---