Safeway, union continue to wrangle over new contract
Several days after Safeway’s unionized workers rejected a contract offer from the company, the two sides sparred Friday over what should happen next.
About 5,300 Safeway workers are “kind of in limbo right now” because the contract they voted down wasn’t rejected by a large enough margin of employees to authorize a strike, said company spokeswoman Kris Staaf in Denver. The next move, she said, “is up to the union.”
Staaf said the company remains “committed to fulfill its legal obligation to bargain” with the union. But Safeway signaled it won’t give its workers a better deal than one agreed to earlier this week by employees at rival grocery King Soopers.
“It would be irresponsible for Safeway to agree to a contract settlement that places our company at a competitive disadvantage relative to our largest unionized competitor in Colorado,” Staaf said.
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7, meanwhile, says it has offered to resume negotiations with Safeway, although no new talks have been scheduled.
“Just as the Local 7 membership respects the votes of King Soopers workers when it comes to their contract, Safeway should respect the votes of their workers — and listen to them – when it comes to the Safeway contract,” said union spokeswoman Laura Chapin. At issue is an8-month-old squabble over a new contract for 7,000 unionized workers at Safeway and 9,000 at King Soopers, which are Colorado’s two largest grocery chains and which employ 1,780 in the Colorado Springs area.
In mail balloting that ended Monday, individual bargaining units that include clerks or meat department employees in particular cities had to either ratify or reject the deal.
Most King Soopers bargaining units ratified the offer, although five units with 260 workers rejected their company’s offer. Most Safeway units rejected their company’s offer, while 15 bargaining units with 1,700 workers accepted it.
That leaves nearly 5,600 of the 16,000 workers at the two chains without a new contract and instead covered under the provisions of a previous deal that expired months ago.
Workers in bargaining units that ratified the contracts will receive the first of four annual raises totaling $1.30 an hour for the highest-paid workers on Sunday; they also will receive signing bonuses of $150 to $1,000 in the form of gift cards.
Offers from both companies also included $40 million in additional payments to an underfunded pension plan; reduced waiting periods for medical coverage; and new preventive health care benefits.
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