Cash-Rich Giant Won't Share With Workers

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)While Giant supermarkets are demanding major givebacks from their workers, parent company Ahold has “too much cash,” Ahold CFO Jeff Carr recently told investors. Ahold last week reported a healthy 6.6% jump in net U.S. sales – to $25.1 billion – in 2011 and Ahold CEO Dick Boer said he would push for a 38 percent increase in the company’s dividend to its stockholders. As the supermarket titan continues to push workers in the metro Washington area for concessions and the clock ticks down to the March 31 contract expiration, a clueless Ahold CEO Boer told investors he wanted employees to “smile.” UFCW Local 400 suggested instead that “One easy solution would be for that money to be reinvested back into existing workers.” Get the latest contract updates at Occupy Giant & Safeway.