Bay Area Grocer Boycott Planned

The California Labor Federation said Wednesday that its members would collect pledges from grocery store customers to boycott major Bay Area supermarket chains if current contract negotiations broke down.

Safeway Inc., Kroger Co.’s Ralphs stores and units of Albertsons Inc. have presented a contract proposal seeking a lower-paid tier of workers and cuts in health benefits for its Bay Area workers.

The chains have extended their current contract until mid-January while negotiations continue with the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 30,000 grocery workers in the area.

Next week, grocery workers and labor, church and neighborhood groups will ask shoppers outside 54 Safeway stores in Northern California to promise to boycott Safeway, as well as Kroger and Albertsons stores, if contract talks fail.

Grocery workers have already collected 75,000 pledge cards, union officials say. By expanding these efforts, the UFCW hopes to pressure the chains to reconsider their latest offer, which the union says passes on too much of the cost of healthcare to workers.

“They have a proposal on the table that would be devastating to our members and future members,” said Ron Lind, president of UFCW San Jose Local 428.

Under the proposal, new grocery store hires would reach the top of the pay scale in eight years, rather than in one or two years under the current contract, Lind said. New hires also would make $2 less an hour than existing workers, Lind said, and pay 20% of their healthcare costs.

Currently, the union’s grocery workers in the Bay Area are responsible for co-payments for doctor visits but do not have any medical premiums deducted from their paychecks. The companies also propose capping their contributions to healthcare benefits and to administer the plan themselves rather than through a joint union-supermarket fund.

The proposal is similar to the contract the supermarkets negotiated on behalf of 59,000 grocery workers in Southern and Central California in late February, after a bitter 4 1/2 -month strike and lockout.

Both sides say they hope to avoid a similar work stoppage in the Bay Area.

Safeway spokesman Brian Dowling said the latest proposal was preliminary and “subject to bargaining.” Safeway still believes the supermarkets can reach a new union agreement by the first quarter and avert a strike, he said.

Since last winter, Safeway has inked deals with UFCW workers in Seattle, Washington and Phoenix without a strike. Contentious negotiations are still underway in Denver.

Negotiations in the Bay Area took a sour turn this week when Safeway took out a full-page ad in local newspapers asking union officials to come up with their own proposal, rather than attack the offer on the table.

The UFCW will offer its proposal in the next two weeks, Lind said.