Grocery talks may resume
As Southern California’s grocery workers union readies for a strike vote Sunday, there are already efforts to restart negotiations with the big supermarket chains, possibly as soon as Wednesday, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
Talks broke off Thursday between the United Food and Commercial Workers union and Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons over a contract for 65,000 workers. Frustrated with the slow pace of negotiations, the UFCW had set a Thursday deadline to receive a contract offer from the grocery chains. When the offer didn’t materialize, the union scheduled a strike vote for this weekend.
But individuals on both sides said Friday that a job action next week was unlikely, even though they expected that union members would vote to authorize UFCW leaders to call a strike.
“We will give the vote results to the three employers and the federal mediator, and the mediator will take it from there. It would make sense for the federal mediator to want to restart the talks quickly,” said Greg Conger, president of UFCW Local 324 in Buena Park.
One person close to the negotiations said that both sides expected talks to resume and that they would use the federal mediator’s office “as window dressing” to get back to the table.
The individual said the employers were determined to hammer out the contract through point-by-point negotiations and were unwilling to accede to the union demand for a comprehensive contract proposal.
“Not all elements of the contract have been discussed in detail yet,” the person said. “The employers would have just established a new floor if there was a full offer on the table.”
Representatives of both sides refused to discuss details on the record because of a request for a news blackout by the federal mediator.
Despite agreement on broad concepts such as improving healthcare benefits and giving employees their first hourly raise since 2002, recent negotiations have stalled over how to pay for the workers’ health insurance and an employer proposal to almost double the time it takes to reach the top of the wage scale. The contract was set to expire March 5 but was extended pending a notice of cancellation by either side.
Both sides say they are hoping to avoid a repeat of the 141-day strike and lockout of 2003 and 2004 that drained workers’ savings and cost the big chains $1.5 billion.
Although workers are expected to support the union’s strike vote, few are pleased with the turn of events.
“Having lived through the train wreck of a strike last time, we don’t want to do that again,” said Bob Mitchell, a Vons worker who lives in Lakewood.
Remembering “eleventh-hour settlements” in previous years, Mitchell said he wouldn’t be surprised to see talks resume next week and for the union to prepare for a strike.
Last week the UFCW threatened to strike markets operated by Ralphs owner Kroger Co. in Dallas and Houston.
As in Southern California, much of the battle in Texas was over how much money the chains were willing to contribute to health insurance. But the UFCW on Friday announced a tentative agreement that provided “secure funding levels for healthcare benefits so that workers and their families can be assured that they will not face unexpected cuts to coverage,” and recommended that its workers approve a new contract.
If there is a Southern California strike, it probably will be quite different from the bitter battle of nearly four years ago, according to people familiar with the strategies of both the union and the employers.
Although the chains have a mutual agreement to lock out workers if any single company is struck, it is far from clear that a job action by one local would spark a wide-ranging work stoppage across Southern California, these individuals said.
The union, for example, might launch a strike only in the Inland Empire. Such a move would help drive business to Stater Bros., a 162-store regional chain that has already signed a contract, and would allow UFCW members working in other areas to help support the strikers.
This type of a strike would be a series of low-level jobs actions that would limit the damage to both the workers and the grocery stores.
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