Haggen Groceries (San Diego, El Cajon, La Mesa: organic, tax, live in)

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by moved

Now Whole Paycheck is cutting 1500 jobs over the next two months. There's going to be a lot of grocery employees job hunting pretty soon.

Makes one wonder if they are just piggy backing off Haggen with that move. It would look much worse stand alone.

[AADAD]

I did not mention this but about 3 weeks ago I went to Haggens and purchased a package of grass fed beef (their brand) and some chicken tenders. When I opened the chicken it smelled so bad. The purchase date was the day I bought it. The beef was lame and did not taste grass fed at all. I wrote to Haggens and received a $15 card which I used yesterday. I talked with a couple of employees and this is what they told me.

Haggens came in and cut full time hours to part time due to $ losses. Union employees mind you.
When they declared bankruptcy all vacation hours (in one person's case over 200 hours) were lost.
They have no idea what is going to happen and many are considering retirement or scrambling to find work.

This is what I don't like. San Diego and this community has a responsibility to ensure that business plans are feasible. Clearly going from 18 stores to over 120 stores was not. Albertsons Vons are just walking away having eliminated a competitor while Whole Foods cuts prices and lays off employees. So we have upwards of 1000 people now out of work as of November 24 (some turkey day for them no?).

A community depends upon taking care of it's members. N O T H I N G is being done for these people NOTHING. I know, I am a realist and have seen this before in other cities. But it really chaffs my hide to see these good people who worked all their lives handed a pack of vaseline and sand and escorted out the doors with nothing having had thousands of earned dollars taken away. It's wrong. Plain and simple.

I wonder if the FTB will tax their severance if any and you can bet they will.

17 months and counting until I can leave this ChittY town where people are more worried about a new football stadium for an arrogant and foolish team than for people who bust their nut every day.

[Teckeeee]

Good point I feel for the Haggen employees that lost their jobs in this SNAFU right before the holiday season..............over some delusional plan to expand and charge 1/3 more for less with fancy re-branding.

[RosieSD]

Originally Posted by AADAD

This is what I don't like. San Diego and this community has a responsibility to ensure that business plans are feasible. Clearly going from 18 stores to over 120 stores was not. Albertsons Vons are just walking away having eliminated a competitor while Whole Foods cuts prices and lays off employees. So we have upwards of 1000 people now out of work as of November 24 (some turkey day for them no?).

A community depends upon taking care of it's members. N O T H I N G is being done for these people NOTHING. I know, I am a realist and have seen this before in other cities. But it really chaffs my hide to see these good people who worked all their lives handed a pack of vaseline and sand and escorted out the doors with nothing having had thousands of earned dollars taken away. It's wrong. Plain and simple.

I wonder if the FTB will tax their severance if any and you can bet they will.
=1
17 months and counting until I can leave this ChittY town where people are more worried about a new football stadium for an arrogant and foolish team than for people who bust their nut every day.

+1 AADad. Any suggestions on what people can do?

Personally, I think the blame starts with the FTC who ordered Albertsons/Safeway to sell the stores as part of their merger. Although it's likely that they would have closed some stores on their own after the merger, it's doubtful that there would have been this wholesale slaughter of jobs across the board.

[malcorub16]

Originally Posted by RosieSD

+1 AADad. Any suggestions on what people can do?

.

How is this the city's, county's or any of our responsibility. Haggen came in like a thief at night unbeknownst to most of us so it is not as though we could have blockade it like some regions do when WalMart tries to come to town.

The grocery retail market is so saturated right now in Southern California that my opinion is, had they remained Albertsons and Vons those stores would have likely closed eventually anyway.

[AADAD]

Brings up the larger question of social responsibility I grant you that. It would be appropriate in my view for the employees to file a wage lawsuit to reclaim their wages and money which they had saved....and yes the FTC order was in hindsight simply dumb...but now hard working people are unjustly paying for that. I'm not an attorney but I think at the very least San Diego City Attorney should look into this and investigate what really happened. If I were directly affected I would be filing a wage/hour dispute with the Feds and talking with my local congressperson until they got tired of seeing me. That's what our reps are supposed to be there for...

[hitman619]

Originally Posted by RosieSD

+1 AADad. Any suggestions on what people can do?

Personally, I think the blame starts with the FTC who ordered Albertsons/Safeway to sell the stores as part of their merger. Although it's likely that they would have closed some stores on their own after the merger, it's doubtful that there would have been this wholesale slaughter of jobs across the board.

This^^^^
The Antitrust laws in this country are so poorly written.

[pecivil]

But it really chaffs my hide to see these good people who worked all their lives handed a pack of vaseline and sand and escorted out the doors with nothing having had thousands of earned dollars taken away. It's wrong. Plain and simple.

So capitalism has some rough elbows, eh? No one is owed a job, or a decent living. There is no social justice. That is the road we have picked for ourselves and we have to live with it.

Bernie Sanders Anyone? I thought not.

[NYSD1995]

The reality is that the SoCal market is likely overserved by traditional-style groceries, their razor-thin margins barely allow the wages and benefits that they have conceded to the unions, it just may be an untenable business going forward.

Like any business some locations will make money and some won't and spreading the cost structure across multiple stores is the only way to make the business work, I would love to see the P&L on some of these stores, I can't imagine how an Albertsons really is competitive with a nearly-identical Vons or Ralphs less than a half-mile a way.

[hitman619]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

The reality is that the SoCal market is likely overserved by traditional-style groceries, their razor-thin margins barely allow the wages and benefits that they have conceded to the unions, it just may be an untenable business going forward.

Like any business some locations will make money and some won't and spreading the cost structure across multiple stores is the only way to make the business work, I would love to see the P&L on some of these stores, I can't imagine how an Albertsons really is competitive with a nearly-identical Vons or Ralphs less than a half-mile a way.

We are very fortunate in the Rolando/La Mesa Area.
There are parts of El Cajon city, South East/East San Diego, that don't have a Major super market for miles.
What!
Those People don't need major chain Grocery Stores. Those are the areas Walmart. Albertson, Vons need to build a store.