Canada Safeway Workers End Strike

Canada Safeway Ltd. said it expects about 10,000 clerks, cashiers and meat cutters to be back on the job after they agreed to a mediated settlement of a 75-day strike affecting 74 stores in the province of Alberta. Under the agreement, in force until March 2001, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the main union involved, failed to secure sought-after wage increases for all employees, who took rollbacks in 1993 to help the company avert a financial crisis. But it did secure a guaranteed number of working hours for part-time staff members, who make up most of the work force at the chain, a unit of Pleasanton-based Safeway Inc. Safeway had insisted that its pay structure remain in line with that of its competitors in Alberta. Safeway shares rose 25 cents to close at $47.50 on the New York Stock Exchange.