By Doug Cunningham

The Kroger, Safeway and Super-Valu giant national grocery chains are playing hardball as contract talks resume with the United Food And Commercial Workers union in southern California. The hugely profitable companies are balking at providing fair wages and good health insurance benefits to 65,000 workers. The UFCW's Mike Shimpock represents southern California grocery workers.

[Shimpock]: "Combined they had $8.3 billion in profits last year. They paid their three CEO's $27 million combined in salaries and bonuses. These are huge corporations that could very easily afford to give their employees a fair wage increase and adequate health care."

Shimpock says these grocery workers haven't had raises since 2002 and half have no company-provided health insurance. Shimpock says these talks aren't just a southern California issue.

[Shimpock 2]: "It's not just about grocery workers in southern California. It's about what's gonna happen to grocery workers and other workers across the United States and anywhere else. Because this is part of a larger trend of companies trying to undermine good, middle-class jobs. And if we don't stand up here and try to put up a bulwark with companies that can clearly afford to pay their employees a fair wage and provide fair benefits, other companies are going to take the lead and attack their middle class jobs as well."