Union, grocers reach tentative agreement
By DAILY PRESS STAFF
CITYWIDE Grocery workers can leave those freshly-made picket signs in the storeroom.
The region’s three major supermarket chains and their workers struck a tentative deal on the terms of a new labor contract on Tuesday, potentially closing the chapter on more than six months of contentious negotiations with Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons.
The 63,000 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers are expected to ratify the agreement on Sunday, in what union officials call a fair deal with wage increases and improvements to health care coverage.
“People in Southern California stood strong in the fight for decent wages and affordable health care,” said Rick Icaza, the president of UFCW Local 770.
The new contract covers seven local UFCW chapters, from Bakersfield to the Mexico border.
Terms of the contract will remain sealed until Monday.
“The companies are very pleased that they we’ve been able to reach these mutually beneficial agreements on new contracts,” said Adena Tessler, spokeswoman for the three grocers. “The companies feel that these new agreements will allow us to remain competitive in the Southern California marketplace.”
Both parties have been battling at the negotiating table since January — two months before the current contract expired on March 5. The current contract has been carried out on a day-by-day basis.
Frustrated with the slow progress of the negotiations, the union authorized a strike last month if talks failed once again.
The union was demanding a repeal of the two-tiered benefit system — separating veteran employees from newbies hired after the 2004 contract — and a wage increase, which the employees haven’t received since 2002.
New employees currently have to wait 18 months before they qualify for health insurance and three years before their children can be covered. The union proposed changing the policy to six months to cover the employee and their children.
Grocery workers also said they wanted to see a wage increase comparable to the $1.25-to-$1.63-an-hour hike workers received under a new contract signed with Stater Bros. and Gelson’s earlier this year.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 19, 2007. Read the original PDF.