State Controller Asks Safeway to End Strike

California State Controller Steve Westly sent a letter to Safeway Inc.’s board of directors asking them to end the 3 1/2-month-long supermarket strike.

Westly, a board member of CalPERS and CalSTRS -- two of Safeway’s largest shareholders -- said Safeway should not cut its workers’ health benefits to compete more effectively with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a company that provides only “nominal health-care benefits.”

Westly also voiced concern that Safeway was awarding top executives millions of dollars in stock grants and options at the same time it was proposing cuts to worker benefits. He urged the company to overhaul its executive compensation system and said he would “work to bring about this change” through his involvement with the two pension funds.

Safeway executives denied Westly’s allegations that the company was trying to provide substandard benefits.

-- Melinda Fulmer