Sacbee.com
By Jon Ortiz - jortiz@sacbee.com
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Grocers, union in tentative deal
Raley's, Save Mart pacts
Union negotiators representing 25,000 Northern California grocery workers reached a tentative labor agreement Friday with two of the region's three biggest grocery chains.
Four United Food and Commercial Workers locals, including Roseville-based UFCW Local 8, signed off on pacts with Sacramento-based Raley's and Modesto-based Save Mart Supermarkets nearly five weeks before the current contracts' Dec. 1 expiration date.
Neither side released specifics of the agreement, which will be mailed to union members next week with ratification ballots. The vote will be counted by mid-November.
The union and Safeway Inc., California's biggest grocery chain with 30,000 employees represented in the current contract talks, have not yet reached an agreement. Experts say the Pleasanton-based chain's negotiating position is weaker now that it is bargaining alone.
Safeway did not return calls seeking comment.
"We're very pleased with the contract," said Jacques Loveall, president of the 33,000-member UFCW Local 8.
The latest round of negotiations was a placid contrast to the tense talks of three years ago, when the chains feared that non-union Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would bowl them over with dozens of new stores around the state that combine deeply discounted groceries with general merchandise.
Those pressures were on dramatic display when 70,000 grocery workers in Southern California went on strike in October 2003 before accepting concessions. Northern California workers avoided a strike, but also swallowed some reductions in pay and benefits.
The givebacks upset some rank-and-file members in Northern California who publicly scoffed at then-local president Jack Loveall's assertion that the deal preserved "the finest contract in the supermarket industry in the United States and Canada."
Much has changed since then.
Wal-Mart has built more than 30 of its so-called Supercenters statewide, but has faced political and labor opposition nearly every step of the way.
Local 8 and its Bay Area counterparts formed an alliance to boost their collective bargaining power. All four unions now have the same contract expiration date and negotiate with one voice.
Meanwhile, grocery chains have blunted Wal-Mart's impact by reinventing themselves to compete on things like service, selection and quality instead of price alone.
Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, said a quick resolution wasn't surprising in light of the agreement made earlier this year in Southern California.
"That was the impetus for others to follow," he said.
The big Southern California grocery strike was the result of the big chains' attempt to slash labor costs.
But the concessions accepted by unions on both ends of the state created enormous turnover problems, which proved costly to the chains.
Now, with their position improved, the grocers are taking a softer line.
"They've backed off," Wong said.
Local 8 President Loveall said in a telephone interview Friday that the contract includes "substantial" pay increases, improves medical benefits without employee-paid premiums and protects pension benefits.
"We made absolutely no concessions," he said.
Raley's spokeswoman Amy Johnston said the agreement "is in the best interest of our colleagues and the future success of our company."
Mike Silveira, Save Mart's vice president of human resources, said in a press release that the deal will keep the company competitive "while continuing to afford decent wages and benefits."
Ken Jacobs, chairman of the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, said the Save Mart and Raley's deal "definitely puts pressure on Safeway to fall in line." In the unlikely event of a strike, he said, "they'd be on their own."
Jacobs believes the new deal shortens the length of time new hires must wait for medical insurance. The 2004 contract lengthened the waiting period.
Southern California's newest agreement returned to a shorter waiting period, Jacobs said, setting the stage for a similar arrangement for Northern California workers.
And just as it did three years ago, the union put a high priority on medical benefits.
"Not having premiums on health care ... was a big issue (for the union)," Jacobs said.
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