Workers ratify contract with grocery stores

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005 | 11:02 a.m.

About 6,000 Southern Nevada members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 711 ratified a contract with three grocery store companies.

The union ratified a three-year contract Tuesday with Vons owner Safeway Inc., Smith's and Food 4 Less owner Kroger Co. and Albertson's Inc., Michael Gittings, secretary-treasurer of Local 711, said.

The union voted "by a good sized margin" to ratify a contract that allows the workers to keep employer-paid health care benefits, includes raises and doesn't include a two-tier wage and benefit structure, Gittings said. A two-tiered contract is a cost-saving measure that would pay new members less in wages and benefits.

Gittings declined to give any details about Tuesday's ratification vote count or how much the raises were for. Representatives of the three grocery store companies declined to comment on the contract.

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