Supermarkets, Union to Resume Contract Talks
Talks are set to resume Tuesday between the union representing striking Southern California grocery workers and three big U.S. supermarket chains.
About 70,000 workers belonging to the United Food and Commercial Workers union have been idle since Oct. 11, when members struck Vons and Pavilions. Ralphs and Albertsons locked out their union workers the next day.
Last Monday, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union ordered its 8,000 drivers and workers at 10 warehouses in Southern and Central California to honor the UFCW picket lines at the warehouses.
A previous round of talks between the supermarkets and the UCFW broke off a week ago.
At the heart of the labor dispute, about to enter its eighth week, are plans by Safeway Inc., Kroger Co. and Albertsons Inc. to cut employee health-care benefits. Safeway owns Vons and Pavilions; Kroger owns Ralphs.
Barbara Maynard, a spokeswoman for the UFCW, said the union would work around the clock to preserve health-care benefits for its 1.4 million members across the nation.
The three chains say workers should start sharing health-care expenses so that the chains can better compete with nonunion rivals such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. -- the dominant player in the $680-billion U.S. grocery industry.
From Times Wire Services
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On February 12, 2004 the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which had stated repeatedly that 70,000 workers were involved in the supermarket labor dispute in Central and Southern California, said that the number of people on strike or locked out was actually 59,000. A union spokeswoman, Barbara Maynard, said that 70,000 UFCW members were, in fact, covered by the labor contract with supermarkets that expired last year. But 11,000 of them worked for Stater Bros. Holdings Inc., Arden Group Inc.’s Gelson’s and other regional grocery companies and were still on the job. (See: “UFCW Revises Number of Workers in Labor Dispute,” Los Angeles Times, February 13, 2004, Business C-11)
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