KROGER, SEAWAY REACH TOLEDO LABOR DEALS

JENNIFER L. BALJKO

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Kroger Co., Cincinnati, and Seaway Food Town, Maumee, Ohio, have reached new accords affecting 4,700 meatcutters and retail clerks and 42 stores here.

The 33-month pacts call for hourly wage increases and improvements in benefits packages, said David Gelios, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 911, which represents 2,500 Kroger and 2,200 Seaway workers. Employees from 23 Seaway supermarkets last week ratified an agreement approved nearly a week earlier by workers from 19 Kroger stores, said Gelios.

"We were able to avert a strike and get a damn good contract. It's about a $1.50 an hour increase with wage and benefits," Gelios said. "It's a big, big settlement in the Midwest. It's the best retail settlement with Kroger anywhere in the country."

Seaway and Kroger executives said the contracts were good for both sides. "The contract was good from the perspective that it provided increases for all of our associates," David Walrod, Seaway's executive vice president and chief operating officer, told SN. "It was good from our perspective that we will have more aggressive managed health-care programs and much of the [medical benefit] increases will be funded by the managed-care program."

Mark Hrabcak, assistant advertising manager for Kroger's Columbus division, said, "We are glad that the contract has been settled in Toledo."

The contracts enact a two-tier wage increase to help close a gap created several years ago when employees earned different wages depending on their hire date, Gelios said. Workers on the high end of the seniority scale will get a $1.05 per hour raise over 33 months, and those with less seniority will get $1.25, he said. The pay increases were a key part of the contract because workers had not received raises for quite some time, Walrod noted. In anticipation of the salary hikes, Seaway has been trimming costs in other segments, such as more front-end automation and product realignments, to help lessen the effect on payroll, he said.

The chains and the union began talking informally in January, and more serious negotiations began two months ago, Gelios said. The recent contract expired June 29.