Sharon Hechler and Kristjana Lewis both work for Albertsons grocery chain, Hechler as a checker and Lewis as a general merchandise clerk. They are both single mothers. But Hechler was able to secure employer-paid health insurance for herself and her son, who is now 28. Even though Lewis has been at the same company for two years, she has not been able to obtain employer-provided health insurance for herself or her family.

The difference? Hechler was hired before 2004, when Albertsons (along with the other two major Southern California grocery chains) imposed a contract on 77,000 workers that created a two-tier system giving new hires inferior pay and benefits compared to more senior workers. Lewis was hired after 2004.

The contract, which was signed after a bitter four-and-a-half-month strike and lockout, means that new hires must wait 12 to 18 months to be eligible for individual health insurance. To be eligible for family health insurance, new employees like Lewis must wait 30 months. (Prior to the contract, all grocery workers had only four-month waits to be eligible for health insurance.) Lewis also receives lower pay than her counterparts hired before the contract went into effect, and faces higher health care premiums.

Although on different sides of the two-tier system, Hechler and Lewis have joined together with community members to fight for better working conditions in the stores and better access to low-cost healthy food in poor neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles.

“It’s about quality jobs for quality stores, and respect for workers, the community and the customers,” said Hechler, who is a leader in the United Food and Commercial Workers union and the Los Angeles Grocery Worker and Community Health Coalition, organized by LAANE. “They’re all becoming like Wal-Mart. And the grocery stores use Wal-Mart as an excuse for cutting wages. I don’t buy it.”

Lewis was hired as a courtesy clerk two years ago at the minimum hourly wage of $6.75. After two years on the job, Lewis, who is 27, earns $7.55 per hour. She credits most of the raise she received to the January increase in the California minimum wage.

As she is only scheduled for 24 hours per week, Lewis is unable to afford a car or her own home and lives with her parents and three children, a six-year-old son and twin daughters who are just shy of two. She pays her parents $100 per month for rent and takes the bus to work.

Lewis often wonders whether going on welfare would be a better option for her family. She cannot afford the individual healthcare premiums at Albertsons and will have to wait another six months to be eligible for health benefits for her children, who are currently covered under state health insurance programs.

But Lewis is not the only one suffering. The more senior workers have seen their hours reduced, shifts arbitrarily rescheduled and the cost of health benefits rise. Carmen Palmeri has worked at the Albertsons in Montebello for 31 years and is currently employed as a bookkeeper. She says she hasn’t had a raise in five years.

Palmeri said that since the strike some of her shifts have been given to new hires. “I know why I get less hours. They’re pushing the higher-wage people out.”

“It’s a classic case of divide and conquer that shifts the conflict away from the perpetrators in the boardrooms and puts it squarely on the backs of workers on the store floor,” said Raena Banks-Neal, a community organizer with LAANE. “The system has adverse effects, not only for these workers, but for shoppers and the community as a whole.”

“It was a good job to raise a family on,” said Palmeri, who has two grown children. “But not now.”

“In the past I worked hard and was compensated for it,” said Hechler. “I was loyal. They could call me up in the morning and ask me to take on another shift, and I’d be glad to, because we were all in it together. But not anymore.”