Supermarkets, clerks reach tentative deal

Alex Veiga

Friday, Feb. 27, 2004 | 9:27 a.m.

LOS ANGELES -- Negotiators for three supermarket chains and grocery clerks reached a tentative contract agreement Thursday, creating hope that the longest supermarket strike in U.S. history would end and send 70,000 financially strapped employees back to work.

Greg Denier, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, declined to disclose details of the agreement.

The 4 1/2-month strike inconvenienced millions of shoppers in Southern California and led to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for the three grocery chains, which had taken a stand against rising employee health costs.

Officials with the union must submit the proposed contract to members for approval. It was not immediately known when they might end pickets and return to work. Voting could begin as early as today.

Sunny Kim, a service manager at a Ralphs store n Los Angeles, said she was pleased to hear the tentative deal was struck but remained apprehensive.

"I'm hoping they'll let us get back to work," the single mother said. "We still have to vote on it."

Her sentiments were echoed by Esther Barillas, a pharmacy tech at Ralphs. "We want to go back to work, but we hope it's a good deal," she said.

The strike targeted Albertsons Inc., Kroger Co., which owns Ralphs, and Safeway Inc., the parent firm of Vons and Pavilions, affecting 859 stores from San Diego north to San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield. Sympathetic shoppers flocked to smaller chains and specialty stores to avoid picket lines.

Negotiations had been deadlocked over the cost and scope of health benefits and a proposed two-tier wage system for future employees.

Workers currently pay no premiums for full health coverage and have a $10 copay for doctor visits and prescriptions. In a Dec. 2 contract offer, the companies sought worker contributions of $15 a month for family coverage by 2005.

Current employees are paid an average of $15 an hour and most do not work full time. The companies' Dec. 2 proposal offered no raises.

The union sought hourly increases of 30 cents in the first year and 35 cents in each of the next two years.

Union leaders framed the dispute as a national bellwether in the fight to preserve affordable health care insurance for the working class.

However, some shoppers saw the clerks as low-skilled workers who had enjoyed free health benefits for too long. Others put the blame on the supermarkets, criticizing their move to cut labor costs to compete against Wal-Mart and other non-unionized, big-box supermarkets.

The strike cost the grocery chains an estimated $2.5 billion in lost revenue. Safeway and Kroger each reported net losses exceeding $100 million in the quarter ended Dec. 31.

It became the longest-running strike in the history of U.S. supermarket labor but fell far short of the five-year strike by grape pickers in Delano during the 1960s -- the longest in California history.

The contract agreement was forged during 16 consecutive days of secret talks that began Feb. 11 under the guidance of a federal mediator. It was the fourth round of sporadic negotiations since the start of the dispute on Oct. 11.

Union members initially struck only the two Safeway chains. Hours later, Ralphs and Albertsons locked out clerks, saying a labor action against one chain amounted to action against all three.

At the start of the dispute, stores had to cut back hours and scramble to train replacement workers. Customers generally supported union members, flocking to other markets not involved in the dispute.

Workers walked picket lines outside stores, encouraging customers to shop elsewhere. The Teamsters squeezed the chains further by refusing to cross the picket lines, forcing store managers to drive tractor-trailers from nearby streets to loading docks.

On Oct. 31, the union pulled pickets from Ralphs stores in a bid to drive a wedge between the supermarket operators.