ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
By Carolyn Tuft
September 5, 2007
Grocery workers voting on new contract
Grocery store workers from Missouri are voting today on whether to accept or reject a three-year union contract that preserves their rights to health insurance.
If the union members reject the contract offer, they will be authorizing a vote to strike.
The 9,500 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655 walked off the job in October 2003 over issues of pay and benefits. The strike caused many grocery store customers to go elsewhere for their food, but many customers crossed the picket lines at the Schnucks Markets Inc., Shop 'n Save and Dierbergs Markets Inc. stores in the metropolitan St. Louis area.
The union's spokesman, Ed Finkelstein, said today that workers will be voting from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. today on whether to accept the three-year deal. They can vote anytime during the 12-hour period at the St. Charles Convention Center.
The union members also were invited to attend two informational meetings -- at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. -- today at the convention center. At those meeting, union leaders will outline the deal. Only the union leaders know what the new contract consists of, so they should go to the meetings to go over what's contained in the deal, Finkelstein said.
Finkelstein said the major sticking point was to assure workers that they will have comprehensive medical insurance.
The members can vote the new contract in with a 50-percent-plus-one vote, meaning that at least half of the members plus one must vote to approve the contract, Finkelstein said.
Yet, to reject the contract and authorize a strike vote, Finkelstein said that the members need a two-thirds rejection. Anything under two thirds would mean that the contract would be accepted as required by international union rules, he said.
Finkelstein said that a rejection of the contract would not necessarily mean a strike was imminent.
"The union can go back to the bargaining table," Finkelstein. "It just depends what the membership wants to do."
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