Amid Posturing, Unions, Chains Near Agreements

ELLIOT ZWIEBACH

LOS ANGELES — A busy year for supermarket labor contract negotiations is showing some signs of progress.

Seven locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, representing 65,000 workers at Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons in Southern California, set a deadline of this Thursday for management to offer a proposal to succeed an already-expired contract. That will be followed by a vote at meetings scheduled for this coming Sunday and Monday on whether to accept whatever management offer is on the table or whether to authorize a strike.

Although union leaders said their members remain ready and willing to repeat the work stoppage of 2003, observers believe an agreement may be near.

“It's posturing by all sides because they're in the heat of negotiations,” Jonathan Ziegler, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based analyst with Dutton Associates, El Dorado Hills, Calif., told SN. “I'm not sure why it's taking so long to reach a new agreement because the gorge is not all that wide, but the odds are high that they'll settle with no work stoppage.”

Part of his reasoning has to do with the damage suffered by the companies and their striking employees three years ago, he said. “The last time was so amazingly painful that another work stoppage this time seems unlikely. But the union has to talk tough, or it won't get anything.”

Perry Caicco, an analyst with CIBC World Markets, Toronto, said he also does not anticipate a strike, based on some positive remarks in the UFCW statement announcing Thursday's deadline.

“That's the most conciliatory wording we've seen yet, and given how much is at stake and the precedents set in other markets, we would be very surprised if an agreement was not forthcoming,” he said in a report.

Caicco said the battle over the size of the reserve to cover the health plan — a major stumbling block in the negotiations — does not seem like an insurmountable issue.

An agreement in Southern California would follow another big contract accord this month for about 10,000 Kroger workers in Detroit. A contract was also close to being finalized last week for Kroger workers in Toledo, Ohio, local union leaders told SN, and talks are ongoing between the UFCW and Kroger in Houston.

Large contracts are also scheduled to be negotiated this year in Northern California and in the Pacific Northwest for Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons, and several smaller contracts around the country are also slated to expire this year.

If another strike is called in Southern California, it would mark the first time the UFCW has called a strike in the same market in successive contract negotiations.

“What happened three years ago is certainly on everyone's minds in the bargaining sessions,” Greg Conger, president of UFCW Local 324, told SN last week, “and I don't think either side would be foolish enough to want that to happen again.

“But we both have our agendas, and each side obviously wants to hold on to as much as it can.”

Adena Tessler, a spokeswoman for the employers, told SN the companies were not rattled by the deadline. “Union threats of a strike and the setting of arbitrary deadlines do nothing to help the negotiating process,” she said. “Negotiating gets done at the bargaining table. On the other hand, we would be delighted to have this settled by [Thursday].”

The UFCW has already signed contracts with Stater Bros. Markets and Gelson's Markets that eliminated the two-tier wage system and promised increases in wages and the employers' contribution to the health care plan.

In Detroit, members of UFCW Local 876 have approved a pact that for the first time calls for workers to contribute to funding their health benefits. Roger Robinson, president of the local, told SN the contract calls for employees to begin paying $4 per week for individuals, $8 per week for couples and $12 per week for families — but it also increases the benefits package for workers and allows workers to become eligible for health insurance more quickly.

In Toledo, UFCW Local 911 last week filed unfair labor practice charges against Kroger, saying that the retailer presented a contract offer to workers directly without going through union channels, according to Jefferson Stephens, president and chief executive officer of the local. Kroger could not be reached for comment.

Despite the setback, the two sides are close to an agreement on a new contract, he said. The contract, covering workers at 28 stores, had expired on April 7. The Toledo union was one of the last Kroger bargaining units to have its health care fully funded by the company.