Southern California Grocery Workers Reach Tentative Deal

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — A strike by 47,000 Southern California grocery workers may have been averted Thursday as their unions reached a tentative contract with three supermarket chains.

Employees were scheduled to vote Monday on whether to approve the deal with Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons. That was the deadline set for reaching an agreement when workers voted in June to authorize a strike.

"We are happy to say that five months after our previous contract expired, the corporate owners of Ralphs and Vons/Albertsons have agreed to a proposed contract," Rick Icaza, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 770, said in a statement.

The contracts will cover employees at about 350 stores in Southern California.

Details weren't released but both sides said they were happy with the proposal, which was reached after a week of round-the-clock negotiations.

The previous contract expired in March.

A four-month grocery store strike and lockout in 2003-2004 cost supermarkets an estimated $1.5 billion and a share of the local market. Strikers also lost wages.

Union officials said in the recent negotiations, the supermarkets first offered pay raises of 10 cents per hour over three years but wouldn't fund health care coverage beyond current levels, which would have required employees to pay more or sacrifice coverage. The markets also wanted to reduce future pension contributions and raise the retirement age from 60 to 65.

Both sides compromised in the tentative contract, Icaza said.

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