Local Construction Workers Skeptical of Safeway’s Hiring Promises

After two years of planning study sessions, city council members on Tuesday unanimously approved demolition and remodeling of the Safeway supermarket on Broadway Avenue. 

The new store will be about twice the size of the current one, and will include a full-service deli, a pharmacy, an expanded produce section and a coffee kiosk. The shopping area will be on the second floor, with a 181-space parking located underneath on the ground floor.

Construction will tentatively commence in the winter.

Safeway representatives assured a jam-packed Millbrae City Hall of unionized construction workers that it will use as much local union labor as possible for its redevelopment of the downtown store.

“We will reach out to local and union contractors early in the process, and work with them to make competitive bids,” said Steve Berndt, vice president of real estate for Safeway.

But, labor leaders are unsatisfied with Safeway’s verbal commitment.

“Safeway continues to refuse to make assurances that construction workers building their new store will receive wages and benefits that will allow our workers to live in our community of San Mateo County,” said Bill Nack, business manager of the San Mateo County Building Trades Council, which represents about 14,000 union workers in the area. 

Berndt said that Safeway cannot officially commit to a prevailing wage, which is an hourly wage with benefits determined for a particular area by the Department of Labor & Industries. 

A typical prevailing wage for a local unionized carpenter, which includes hourly pay plus health care and pension benefits, is about $60 an hour in the Bay Area, according to the California Division of Labor Statistics and Research.

"I retired 8 years ago because of the benefits I received through working sheet metal unions for all my life," said Dennis Gilchrist, a lifelong Millbrae resident whose father worked as a union butcher at Safeway. "We must go union. There must be a signed document, I don't trust Safeway."

Local union workers lose project bids to Central Valley and out-of-state non-union workers that earn as little as $15 an hour with no benefits, according to Nack.

Berndt touted that last week a union general contractor won the construction bid for its new Berkeley store.

But San Mateo County Safeway development projects in Daly City and  are run by non-unionized general contractors.

“We didn’t make that commitment [to hire local unions] on those other projects,” Berndt said. “It’s something we look at now and say, we could have been more sensitive there.”

In February, Union Local 389 picketed outside the Burlingame Safeway to protest the hiring of subcontractors that were not paid area prevailing wages.

Berndt said Safeway has learned from the industry's backlash over those two projects.

“The difference between those projects and [the Millbrae one] is that we’re committing to work with the local tradespeople to try to make a difference,” he said.

However, Safeway made similar promises to hire local workers in Contra Costa County last year for its El Cerrito store, according to Greg Feere, chief executive officer of the Contra Costa Building and Construction Trades Council. 

“They didn’t hire a single union or local worker,” he said. “It was the worst project we’ve seen in the county.”

Nack sent a petition to Safeway today calling on the supermarket to pay its workers a prevailing wage for the Millbrae store. The petition was signed by 39 San Mateo County politicians, including state Senator Leland Yee, Millbrae Mayor Dan Quigg, Vice Mayor Marge Colapietro and councilwoman Gina Papan.

Additionally, on April 5, council members sent Safeway a letter reminding it of the high unemployment rate in the local construction industry.

Legally, the City of Millbrae cannot mandate wages, and the city has gone to the maximum extent permitted to enforce prevailing wages, according to the city attorney.