WHAT YOU SHOULD DO TO SUPPORT THE UFCW STRIKE
1. Don't cross the picketline.
Fairly basic, innit? All the strikers will be able to tell you the name of a labor-friendly shop you can get groceries at. Some of them may even be able to take you there and help you get groceries if you lack transportation. Strikers are cool like that.
2. Keep your friends and family from crossing the picketline.
Also basic, but overlooked.
3. Harrass the scabs.
Scabs are short-sighted and foolish - and, dare I say it - they're class traitors. The future welfare of the workforce isn't worth their twenty-buck an hour temp jobs. Make it hard on them, and they'll quit.
4. Operation Mischief: Slow down the store's day-to-day operations.
a. Take a cart in after letting the strikers know you're not buying anything. Fill the cart with stuff from all over the store. Take it to the checkout, get halfway through, then say something about not buying food from a scab, and leave.
b. Buy a single non-food, nonperishable item. Take it out from the store. Come back an hour later and return it. Repeat as necessary.
c. Switch prices around. Move stock from one shelf to another.
d. Pull all the expensive ice cream out of the freezer and stick it in several spots through the store.
e. The same as "d", but use shrimp, and hide it.
f. Take a black marker and put a black slash through UPC codes.
g. Call your local health authorities and report the hot food being dropped on floors and replaced under the hotlamps.
h. Call the DEA on in-store pharmacies and report mislabled medicines or "under the table" controlled substance distribution.
i. Report that scab butchers are having carnal relations with the meat.
j. Buy a bottle of alcohol while the manager isn't looking, then bring in your eleven-year-old child and accuse the store of selling your minor child the booze.
k. Unwrap the privacy wrappings from all the "adult" magazines. Place them on the bottom shelf. Call the cops. Enjoy.
l. Report having peeled off the expiration sticker on some cuts of meat only to find another sticker underneath with a date that was several days prior.
m. If the store has the "purified water" dispensers, report that you watched them be filled with a regular garden hose.
5. Picket with the unioners!
Its extremely rare that you won't be welcomed on the picket lines. Warm bodies to tote signs are always welcome.
6. Bring them food and drink.
Picketing is, surprisingly, hard work. Hydration and nutrition are necessary if you're not going to faint on the line.
7. Inform the populace.
Pamphlets. Ask the unioners for ANYTHING they want handed out. Then do a boogie through a farmer's market or mall.
8. Pressure management.
Tell them you won't shop where scabs work. Let them know that you're simply waiting for the strike to be over to come back to shop... unless, of course, the union is shafted at the bargaining table again. Let them know that you would prefer to be shopping at their store - and being served by the union members.
9. Remember that cops might not be your friends.
It varies from district to district, but some cops aren't friendly towards striking union members, and they might go after you for supporting them (especially if you engage in Operation Mischief). Of course, a lot of cops are also union members. Keep it in mind, remember your Miranda rights, and never forget that YOU, not THEY, are in the right.
10. Lastly, morale.
Remember that its hard to be a unioner when so many people don't feel you should get "special" treatment. Honk when you see them. Yell encouragement. Let them know that you appreciate them for what they're doing.