Safeway Northern California Ad Has The Vons Logo Now

[storewanderer]

Pak N Save has been on Safeway pricing for the past 15+ years. They have run common ads with Safeway for the past 25+ years. Pak N Save has also had common perishables from Safeway for the past 25+ years. In the late 90's Safeway used to circulate a coupon book (monthly)- that had Safeway and Pak N Save logos. That coupon book was one version for all of NorCal plus Reno area. Pak N Save logos right next to Safeway logo all over, and on every coupon.

That's rather unfortunate, but I guess it explains why so many of the stores have closed. High prices and limited service doesn't exactly attract customers.

Honestly, I don't see why Safeway bothers keeping this contract alive. It's not like they are going to expand the concept in the future. If the Kroger merger falls through, there will still be no use for it.

But thanks for the detailed explanation.

There is something in the negotiation strategy/government affairs side of things that says you need to keep a store open to keep these contracts alive. Albertsons did it back in 2006 (then LLC closed it... but probably knew they were selling the division to Save Mart at that point so it didn't matter), Raleys appears to be doing it.

There could be a point in time where Safeway wants the option to expand the Pak N Save concept again and wants to have the contract in place so they can engage in a somewhat seamless/quick expansion of the concept. There could be a variety of reasons for wanting to keep this option open such as economic fears, government incentives to set up shop in underserved areas that they may decide to go after in the future, labor shortages that make the labor intensive Safeway format not viable, etc.

[storewanderer]

I believe that Foods Co. In Oakland is non-union.

Union Local 5
https://ufcw5.org/pdf/union-service-guide.pdf

That is interesting, I would have thought going union would have been required by the incentive packages they received to open their store there in Oakland. I guess Oakland was so desperate to get a store... I do know that their incentive packages required them to have service counters for meat, service deli, etc. which they have and those are not really present much in other NorCal FoodsCos (Salinas has them as it is hispanic format).

I'm not sure how FoodsCo is doing in Oakland but they put up a nice big store there, very spacious, feels safe, and I think Kroger's pricing/merchandising is the right fit for the area and from what I can tell the store is well received by many but not all customers. I am nervous what will happen to this particular location in the event of a Safeway merger. If it is not divested and it gets taken over by Safeway NorCal and gets run like a Pak N Save... it will fail. Pak N Save already failed in Oakland in 2013 before FoodsCo opened, the still vacant building is 3 miles away from FoodsCo. Food Maxx would be a price increase and downgrade but maybe they could keep the store open. Thing is there is already a Food Maxx 1 mile from the Oakland FoodsCo so not sure how divesting to Food Maxx would increase competition. Divesting to some C&S F4L franchisee would be terrible.

Also that the Oakland FoodsCo installed self checkout recently tells me this store must have either strong security, they hold to a 15 item transaction limit though. They also only installed either 4 or 6 units.

I also see the newest Nob Hill in Santa Clara is not union either, and it appears only certain Raleys locations are union. So it must have been Raleys agreement with the Sacramento area UFCW that pulled all of the non-union stores into the union in the past decade but not all stores in NorCal.

[HCal]

That is interesting, I would have thought going union would have been required by the incentive packages they received to open their store there in Oakland. I guess Oakland was so desperate to get a store...

A store can't just "go" union, the employees have to vote on it. Neither the employer nor the government can mandate it.

Sometimes with incentive packages there is a "living wage" requirement saying that the workers have to be paid a higher minimum wage. This may obviate the main need for a union.

[storewanderer]

That is interesting, I would have thought going union would have been required by the incentive packages they received to open their store there in Oakland. I guess Oakland was so desperate to get a store...

A store can't just "go" union, the employees have to vote on it. Neither the employer nor the government can mandate it.

Sometimes with incentive packages there is a "living wage" requirement saying that the workers have to be paid a higher minimum wage. This may obviate the main need for a union.

That is interesting. When FoodsCo converted two of the Ralphs in Sacramento into FoodsCos (specifically Stockton Blvd. and Gerber Road) those opened as union shops (without any Ralphs employees- they were all on a different contract and moved to Ralphs that stayed open), and anyone who was hired at either store it was mandatory they joined the union. The stores were unionized from day one.

Maybe since they had previously been union shops, reopening under a different contract, somehow they opened as union from the start because of that?

Also Rite Aid and Safeway have opened multiple stores in CA new build stores and those have been union shops from day one I think. I may be totally wrong here... is there a difference if every store in a chain in the region is unionized that new stores automatically open union, but then in the case of a chain like FoodsCo with a mix of union and non union the new stores that open have to actually do a formal vote to unionize after being open for a while?

[HCal]

That is interesting. When FoodsCo converted two of the Ralphs in Sacramento into FoodsCos (specifically Stockton Blvd. and Gerber Road) those opened as union shops (without any Ralphs employees- they were all on a different contract and moved to Ralphs that stayed open), and anyone who was hired at either store it was mandatory they joined the union. The stores were unionized from day one.

Maybe since they had previously been union shops, reopening under a different contract, somehow they opened as union from the start because of that?

Also Rite Aid and Safeway have opened multiple stores in CA new build stores and those have been union shops from day one I think. I may be totally wrong here... is there a difference if every store in a chain in the region is unionized that new stores automatically open union, but then in the case of a chain like FoodsCo with a mix of union and non union the new stores that open have to actually do a formal vote to unionize after being open for a while?

This depends on the contract and how it defines the bargaining unit. A fully unionized retailer may have it defined as all its employees in a certain geographic location, meaning that any newly built or acquired stores within that region are automatically part of the bargaining unit. A partially unionized retailer may have a more specific definition, based on prior votes of employees. Based on the definition, the new store may either open unionized or not.

[Alpha8472]

Raley's has a non-union store in Pleasanton, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, the Nob Hill Foods markets owned by Raley's in the Bay Area are union except for Santa Clara. When Nob Hill Foods closed in San Ramon, the employees transferred to the non-union Raley's in Pleasanton.

There is a union Nob Hill Foods in Livermore, California one city over inside of a former Ralphs. It still has the 2000s era Ralphs decor to this day.

[storewanderer]

Raley's has a non-union store in Pleasanton, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, the Nob Hill Foods markets owned by Raley's in the Bay Area are union except for Santa Clara. When Nob Hill Foods closed in San Ramon, the employees transferred to the non-union Raley's in Pleasanton.

There is a union Nob Hill Foods in Livermore, California one city over inside of a former Ralphs. It still has the 2000s era Ralphs decor to this day.

Raleys in Grass Valley used to be non union but it was my understanding it became union after the union did a strike against Raleys or threatened to do a strike against them sometime in the past 10-15 years and the various scattered non union Raleys all went union at least outside the bay area.

Nob Hill relocated its existing Livermore store into the Livermore Ralphs. That happened around the same time Raleys sold its Las Vegas Stores to Kroger, a year or two before Ralphs formally exited from NorCal. The Livermore Ralphs didn't do much business; San Ramon did somewhat better; Dublin was a complete dog.