Pros
-Union pay and benefits. $20 an hour for long term grocery, produce, meat, and front end cashiers/management. Great medical and pension. Vacation time accrual. Holiday pay at 3x pay for long term associates. -A family atmosphere among co-workers. Made some life long friends.
Cons
-Little to no concern about selling healthful food. Completely out of touch with what quality (wealthy) customers would be looking for. -The UFCW. The strike of 2003-04 changed the business forever. Emotionally and financially taxing, and things really were never the same. -Unstable. I watched a lot of corporate friends get let go for no other reason than to just shed payroll. 25 year employees given little option other than to just give up. Constant threat of layoffs for anyone with less than 20 years union seniority. Worrying about your job every three years with every contract renewal. -Little motivation to move up into corporate positions because of the above. This includes assistant store director positions, the first position that was not a union position. And even store directors and assistants face the looming threat of a labor dispute every 3 years because they have to watch their stores crumble. -Store closings. Transfers for management often at no fault of the person themselves, but because someone else screwed up. -Pay for service departments like deli, bakery, and butcher block. These people make your stores just not another big box mess, yet are treated as second class citizens.