Local 1459 Executive Vice President Rick Brown Talks to Newsman Ray Hershel

UFCW Local 1459 gathered with some 70 workers including at least nine other local unions at a Springfield Stop and Shop hiring hall on Friday afternoon. The union and its labor allies held an information picket to draw attention to Stop & Shop's confrontational plan to use replacement workers if there is a strike.

Chanting "What do we want? Justice!" the workers made it clear to the community that Stop and Shop, which reported record profits last year, has no intention of sharing those profits with its loyal workforce, instead it would rather have inexperienced scab labor doing the work of its loyal employees.

"We are sending a message out that we believe Stop and Shop has an obligation to the community and that they are taking advantage of the unemployment rate bringing in temporary workers," says Rick Brown, Executive Vice President of Local 1459.

Brown says that the workers' hours have been cut a little more each day and those on the job are doing the work of two people, sometimes three. With $6.8 billion dollars earned last year, the workers say they just "want a piece of the dream."

"It just seems that every year a little more is taken from us," Stop and Shop employee Jay Babineau says. "And I just don't think that's right. Not for a company that made the profits they made this year."

Babineau has been working for Stop & Shop for 24 years. He says he loves his job but, enough is enough ... "We want fair wages -- and they are offering us pennies, nickels and dimes."

Brown says that the workers successfully turned temporary replacement workers around from the hiring hall hiring scab labor for Stop and Shop. "Once people were informed that they would be taking the jobs of current employees, and that these jobs were only temporary, they thought twice about applying."

Negotiations between the union and company resume Tuesday, and though the workers say that they don't want a strike, Brown says they are ready to do so if needed.