Grocery Talks Resume

Union and supermarket negotiators met with a federal mediator Wednesday in an attempt to end the 4-month-old California grocery strike. A spokesman for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service said talks were likely to resume today.

As in past mediated sessions, the parties agreed not to discuss details of the negotiations, which are being held in an undisclosed location in Southern California.

The meeting Wednesday was the first formal bargaining session in more than seven weeks, although union officials and supermarket executives met informally at least twice during the hiatus, in San Francisco and Denver. Both sides said they remained far apart on healthcare and on wages and benefits for new hires.

Kroger Co.’s Ralphs, Safeway Inc.’s Vons and Pavilions and Albertsons Inc. are bargaining jointly with seven locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. About 70,000 workers from 852 stores in Southern and Central California are affected by the work stoppage, which began with an Oct. 11 strike against Vons and Pavilions. Ralphs and Albertsons stores locked out their union workers the following day.

-- Nancy Cleeland

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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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