Open Letter to Raley's/Nob Hill Management

Fellow Patch Readers, I sent this via email to Raleys/Nob Hill management after I received an email full of special offers enticing shoppers to cross the union picket lines to take advantage of them.  

Nob Hill has sent special offers before, but this really stuck out because it was more than was usually offered, and it arrived in my inbox the day the picket lines went up.  

As I state below, the offers are tempting, but I'm not willing to turn my back on people that live and work in my town and sell my values so cheaply.

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Dear Raleys/Nob Hill Management:

I was sorely disappointed to receive an email offering several attractive specials, including what basically amounted to a $5 bribe to cross the picket lines, not once, but twice.  

I have several choices of grocery stores in Alameda, but I choose to go out of my way to shop at Nob Hill because it is easy in so many ways. The store is clean and well laid out.  I like the quality and breadth of your products.  Your prices are competitive and often cheaper than the other groceries in town.  I like your website and online specials. 

But most of all, I like your staff.  They seem like they want to be at work.  They are helpful and polite.  Whereas I don't consider the staff my friends (nor I am sure, do they I), they are always friendly.  And not only to me, they are helpful, polite, courteous and friendly to all your customers.  They make the store what it is. In fact, to name names, that is precisely why I avoid shopping at either of the two Safeways in Alameda because their respective staffs act as though they are doing me a favor to let me shop at the store!

Therefore, your offer of great deals, cash incentives and the like are very disappointing to me because they are undermining the great staff at your store who happen to belong to a union.  A union that cannot come to an agreement with you on employee benefits.  I am not a union member, and in fact have been on the management side in labor negotiations, so I'm not exactly a union sympathizer.  But these offers seem very underhanded and a sneaky way to ask me to undermine your staff that live and work in my community and make a mundane chore, grocery shopping, just a little more pleasurable.  Like the folks that make up your staff, I too need to budget to make ends meet, so these offers are very tempting.  However, I will not take advantage of them because I am not willing to undermine that same staff who are trying to preserve their benefits and make their own budgets liveable.

Before you send anymore of these to your email subscribers, please consider what this is doing to your corporate image of a family-friendly, cares-about-the-community company.  Because some of us consider your staff a part of our community, to undermine them in this way tarnishes your image and makes people like me rethink our decision to shop at your store.