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GUEST: Ricardo Icaza, President of UFCW Local 770

About 65,000 Grocery workers in Southern California recently voted to authorize a strike in the event that contract negotiations between their union and three major supermarket chains break down. Representatives from Albertsons, Ralphs, and Vons have been meeting with leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers union for many months now. The Federal mediator overseeing the talks, this week called for a recess until next Monday because of the July 4th holiday. At the heart of the negotiations is eliminating a 2-tier employee system that was put into place after the 2003-04 strike that lasted 141 days. The grocery chains want to cut costs citing competition from Walmart – however they posted record high profits in the billions of dollars last year. Meanwhile film maker Robert Greenwald’s production company, Brave New Films, has teamed up with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy to feature the testimonials of grocery workers using online video. The first of such videos has just been released on supermarketswindle.com.

For more information and to view the entire video by Brave New Films, visit supermarketswindle.com