CINCINNATI -- Supermarket clerks returning to work last week after a nine-week strike at West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky stores operated by Kroger Co. here succeeded in using the work stoppage to preserve their health care benefits, union leaders told SN.
During the strike, Kroger closed all 44 affected stores in the tri-state region. In the third quarter ended Nov. 8, Kroger said it sustained estimated lost sales of $135 million to $145 million due to strikes in Southern California and the West Virginia area, with roughly 10% of that total, or $14 million to $15 million, due to the West Virginia strike.
According to a spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 400, Landover, Md., which represents the 3,300 clerks at 44 Kroger stores in the tri-state area, the newly ratified four-year contract calls for the company to increase payments to the union's health and welfare fund by up to 10.5% annually, as opposed to the 8% the company had offered prior to the strike that began Oct. 13.
However, a Kroger spokesman described the contract provisions differently to SN. "The contribution rate in the new contract is the same as what Kroger had proposed in October," he said. "The increase is up to 8% per year."
The Kroger spokesman added that both labor and management will conduct annual reviews of the health care reserves. "If it is determined that additional money is needed to maintain the reserve policy of the fund, Kroger will provide a lump-sum adjustment equal to up to 9 cents per hour on the hours worked for the 52 weeks leading up to the reserve review," he said.
Asked if the lump-sum adjustment equaled the 10.5% annual increase the union representative spoke of, the Kroger spokesman declined to comment.
When Jim Lowthers, president of Local 400, was asked about the discrepancy between the company's and the union's versions of the agreement, he told SN, "Kroger is just trying to mask the fact that they actually agreed to put more money into the trust find, something they said they would never do.
"Frankly, they rolled over. We wouldn't have gone back for the thing that we had been offered in October."
Both the company and Local 400 said the pay package the new contract offers is a mix of wage increases (which the union had wanted) and lump-sum payments (which Kroger had preferred).
A full-time clerk, the Kroger spokesman explained, will get two 25-cents-per-hour raises, the first of which started when the workers returned to the job last week, the second in 2005. Also, the spokesman said, there are two lump-sum payments of up to $500 -- the first next year, then another in 2006.
For part-time employees, the spokesman said, there is a new wage structure that tops out at $9.05 per hour after 96 months of employment, in contrast to the old structure, which had wages topping out at $8.65 per hour after 120 months. Part-time clerks, he added, will get 20-cent increases in years one and three of the contract and lump-sum payments of $300 in years two and four.
