Giant/Landover may be looking to close its dry grocery warehouse in Jessup and shift that business to a C&S Wholesale Grocers’ distribution center in York, PA, according to Ritchie Brooks, president of Teamsters Local 730, which represents approximately 430 warehouse workers at Giant’s Jessup, MD dry grocery facility.
Brooks, long-time president of Local 730, acknowledged that officials from Jessup Logistics, a unit of C&S Wholesale Grocers, gave verbal notice that the distribution center would be closing, although no time frame was specified. At presstime, Jessup Logistics had not filed the required 60 day WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice) paperwork that is needed for such a closure. Jessup Logistics, a unit of C&S Wholesale Grocers, began supervision of the Jessup facility on March 20, in a move that was first announced in April 2010. Giant’s five year contract with Local 730 expires on May 14.
“We knew this was coming,” Brooks said. “We gave them our whole list of proposals and they’ve countered with one proposal.
According to Bryan Granger, a spokesman for Jessup Logistics, his company has met with Local 730 five times and more meetings are scheduled.
Granger noted that Jessup Logistics has the “responsibility to secure significant cost-savings in order to deliver groceries and products to store shelves as efficiently as possible. “There have been great advances in automation and technology in grocery distribution, which could save at least $26 million per year.”
Brooks said that he feels that Jessup Logistics is looking to gain the whole $26 million annual savings from Teamsters’ concessions, a figure Brooks said was unrealistic when viewed over the length of a typical five year contract.
“Our people have helped the company grow for many years,” Brooks stated. “Now we feel that they are throwing us aside, and to this point none of the bargaining has been in good faith.”
He believes that C&S will follow the same strategy that it recently deployed with A&P/Pathmark and Teamsters Local 863, which ultimately resulted in the closure of six food distribution centers in northern New Jersey in February that warehoused product for the chain. That business was shifted to other C&S related depots in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Connecticut and affected 1,300 Teamsters.
“Carl Schlicker, who runs Ahold USA now, is very anti-union and C&S is doing all of their dirty work,” Brooks asserted.
When Giant struck the outsourcing deal last year, it gave workers a choice of working for Jessup Logistics under the same contract or taking a lump-sum buyout of $50,000. More than 70 workers took the buyout, which Giant said was paid in September.
While Teamsters Local 730 is negotiating with Jessup Logistics, Giant/Landover is bargaining directly with Teamsters Local 639, which represents approximately 200 of the retailer’s truck drivers. Giant is also negotiating directly with Local 730 over a new pact for its 380 warehouse workers at its modern perishables distribution center (which opened in 2003), also located in Jessup. That contract along with Local 639’s expires on May 14.
Giant/Landover and both Teamsters Locals have a long and sometimes checkered history with each other. In December 1996, Local 639 struck Giant over the chain’s desire to outsource certain deliveries. Local 730 honored the strike, which resulted in a 35 day work stoppage and cost both sides million of dollars. In 2005, Giant shuttered three antiquated distribution centers in affecting 500 employees.