Colorado’s unionized grocery workers are watching negotiations between supermarket chains and the United Food and Commercial Workers union elsewhere in the country with an eye toward 2009, when their own contract will expire.
“Whatever contract they get out there, if they don’t fund health plans sufficiently, that is going to spread across the country,” said Ernie Duran Jr., UFCW Local 7 president.
The UFCW has more than 20,000 members in Colorado and is one of the state’s largest unions.
Grocery-worker contracts have been coming up for renewal across the country, and agreements have been reached recently in Texas and Michigan. In Toledo, Ohio, Kroger Co., the largest U.S. grocery chain, on Tuesday said workers had ratified a new labor agreement.
Kroger operates in Colorado as King Soopers and City Market.
“This agreement provides wage increases and affordable quality health- care benefits for our associates and their families and keeps Kroger competitive in the marketplace,” Bruce Macaulay, president of the company’s Great Lakes division, said in a statement.
But in Southern California, talks with Supervalu Inc.’s Albertsons, Kroger Co.’s Ralphs and Safeway Inc.’s Vons and Pavilions have been hung up over several issues, including funding for health care benefits.
The contract for 65,000 workers has been extended twice since its March 5 expiration.
Both sides have said they want to avoid a repeat of a 141-day strike and lockout in 2003-04 that left many union members in debt and cost the employers an estimated $1.5 billion.
Companies have been working hard to get concessions from workers. In May 2005, after nine months of rancorous negotiation, Colorado’s grocery workers signed a contract with the same three chains now in talks in California. Colorado Albertsons stores, however, are not owned by Supervalu but by Albertsons LLC.
The contracts with Albertsons, Safeway and King Soopers froze wages and required workers to make health care co-payments for the first time.
The union also agreed to a two-tiered pay system that gave new hires less than those hired previously.
“Our members understand that what happens in one part of the country affects them. What concessions they achieve in Southern California, they roll across the country,” Duran said.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
