Grocery Workers Rally for New Contract

As hundreds of grocery workers rallied outside the corporate headquarters of Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons on Tuesday, officials from the grocery chains released a statement saying they were committed to reaching an agreement with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770.

The grocery workers' contract expired March 6, and since then, they and Vons, Albertsons and Ralphs have been working toward a new deal. The union voted in April to authorize a strike if no deal is reached.

Vons and Albertsons each operate three stores in Redondo Beach, while Ralphs has one location in the city.

"While these grocery chains scored $5 billion in profits over the last three years, they want to shift the cost of health care to workers and taxpayers just to boost their profits another 3 percent," UFCW Local 770 President Rick Icaza said. "We want a fair contract that respects the workers who are the backbone of these profitable companies."

The secretary-treasurer of the union, John Grant, agreed, telling a local television station that the two sides had not reached a solution on health care or wages. "We have to show the companies—because they seem to be blind, deaf and dumb—that the community wants a decent contract for their grocery workers," he said.

Nevertheless, the companies said in a statement they had proposed a health-care plan 42 days ago, and they were "disappointed" in the union's response, which "did nothing to address the rising cost of health care, even though we've been talking about that issue for months."

The companies' health-care proposal called for employees to contribute $9 per week for single coverage and $23 per week for family coverage, according to the statement. Additionally, the companies said that half their employees don't pay weekly contributions for health care, and those hired after March 2004 pay $7 and $15 per week for single and family coverage, respectively.

The national average payment for family coverage is $76 per week, according to the companies.

"The union leaderships' attention would be better focused at the bargaining table as we are discussing difficult issues, and tough problems are not solved easily or quickly," the statement read.

The workers and the supermarkets recently reached an agreement on pension issues; however, the two sides differed over how significant the agreement was.

From late 2003 to early 2004, a 141-day grocery-store lockout implemented after workers authorized a strike cost the chains about $1.5 billion and wiped out many workers' savings.

City News Service contributed to this report.