Grocery workers to begin voting Friday on latest contract offer

Colorado grocery workers will begin voting on so-called last, best and final contract offers from King Soopers and Safeway in mail balloting that starts Friday, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union local 7 said Wednesday.

The negotiating committee for 17,000 unionized grocery workers in Colorado and Wyoming is not making public a recommendation on the contract offer. The union will begin mailing ballots to members Friday, and a vote count is expected Dec. 14, the union said.

A 200-person committee from United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7 had been reviewing the offer since Nov. 16. The 52-month contract offer includes annual raises totaling $1.30 an hour for the highest-paid workers, signing bonuses of $150 to $1,000 in the form of gift cards paid upon ratification, $40 million in additional payments to an underfunded pension plan, reduced waiting periods to get medical benefits and new preventative health care benefits.

Union members have previously rejected several contract offers from Albertsons, King Soopers and Safeway, including final offers from King Soopers and Safeway, and have voted at least twice to authorize a strike against Safeway. Previous offers were for five-year contracts that did not include the signing bonuses and did include somewhat smaller raises. Negotiations began in April; workers from all three chains have been working without a contract for months.

Union officials said the earlier offers were little changed from the chains’ initial offers in April and would require cuts in future pension accruals by up to 62 percent, raise the minimum retirement age for Local 7 members from 50 to 55 and end a $200-amonth supplemental payment for retirees age 60 to 62.

If no agreement is reached, an arbitrator has scheduled hearings for Dec. 16 through Dec. 18 to hear arguments from the union and representatives for the three chains on whether to cut benefits and future accruals from the underfunded pension plan.

Any strike would be the first in the Colorado grocery industry since Local 7 staged a 42-day walkout against King Soopers in 1996, which triggered a lockout of union members by Safeway. Both chains have agreed to lock out workers if the union goes on strike against the other; Albertsons is not part of that agreement. King Soopers and Safeway have been advertising since early May for temporary workers who would be hired only if the union calls a strike.

The union represents more than 1,700 members in the Colorado Springs area.