Stop & Shop’s corporate leadership says its proposed contract maintains current employees’ pensions. But future employees? They’ll get less.
This is what’s called a “two-tiered” contract, the two tiers being current workers and future hires. This lets employers plan on future savings that will roll in as current workers retire or leave.
Robert Forrant, a labor historian at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, says unions generally do not like this strategy.
“Over time, as the workforce changes, as it will, you will start to have these workforces where people are being paid different money and having different benefits for doing the exact same job,” Forrant says. “The tactic that’s most prevalent when this happens is to try to split the workers, and it’s usually an attempt to divide and conquer.”
Stop & Shop has emphasized that its proposal would give all its employees a wage increase.
