The Internet has brought substantial changes to the way we buy goods and services, and nobody is more aware of that than Thomas Wilkinson. As new online grocery delivery services spring up, Wilkinson’s union, Local 371 of the United Food & Commercial Workers, is trying to keep shoppers in the “brick and mortar” supermarkets.
Local 371 recently did a mass mailing of postcards in the Connecticut area asking shoppers to boycott the web merchant Shoplink.com by buying their groceries at local stores staffed by UFCW workers. Shoplink.com, based in Massachusetts, delivers groceries and other products in several Northeastern states, recently expanding into Connecticut as well.
Wilkinson says that there is a lot at stake here, and is encouraging union members and their supporters to buy from local stores.
“Once you cross a line there’s no going back,” said Wilkinson, who is the Secretary of Local 371 and the President of the Fairfield Labor Council. “The main focus is informing people who the non-union stores are. Our concern is that our members not lose because of Shoplink coming in,” he added.
Wilkinson would like to see workers at the newer web merchants like Shoplink and Webvan organize and become members of his union. He adds that joining the union would give them benefits, like health insurance and job protections, that they might not get from the non- unionized dot coms.
“There’s no reason why (shoplink.com) can’t be union,” he said.
The UFCW has sent out a “tremendous number of postcards,” receiving gestures of support as a result of the mailings and other campaigns to inform people which stores are unionized. But Shoplink.com says it also has received expressions of support from people who do not like the union mailers.
Elizabeth Horton, Director of Corporate Communications for Shoplink.com, says that her company is aware of the boycott but has no plans to deal with the union. “Our delivery specialists are people-oriented,” said Horton. “They get solid base pay and great benefits.”
The company is not just in the grocery delivery business, she insists. It also provides concierge services such as drop-offs of dry cleaning, postage stamps, and a special line of prepared foods that can be quickly heated in the microwave
Shoplink competitor Priceline.com gets high marks from Wilkinson’s union. The company’s “name-your-own-price” grocery service lets customers purchase food on the web that must then be picked up from unionized stores like Grand Union and Stop & Shop. Wilkinson also thinks that some of the larger supermarkets eventually will create their own delivery service spinoffs, which would likely be unionized as well.
Shoplink doesn’t view Priceline as a serious threat however. “Our focus is on quality,” says Horton. “And that makes us different from Priceline.” Shoplink claims to have the fastest growth rate among competitors in the high-tech Boston market.
As more dot coms jump into the grocery delivery business, the unions are likely to feel more threatened. But it’s far too early to consider conventional grocery stores an endangered species. When that craving for ice cream hits at 10 p.m., the store is where you’ll be headed.
(c) Article Copyright 2000 Hugh Brower. Syndicated by ParadigmTSA
