Wednesday, May 12, 2004
By PAUL NYHAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Houston grocery workers accepted contracts from Kroger Co. this week, the latest union members to reach agreements without a walkout since the five-month lockout and strike in Southern California.
In Seattle, negotiators are trying to agree on a new pact for 2,400 employees at Kroger's Fred Meyer and QFC stores in the Puget Sound region. Overall, the Seattle talks cover 16,000 workers at Safeway, QFC, Fred Meyer and Albertsons stores.
Only six weeks ago, grocery workers agreed on a new pact for nearly 30,000 workers in the Washington, D.C., area.
Seattle officials may be interested in details of the Houston contract, though the information was not available yesterday.
The Houston bargaining, though, was different in several key respects. Texas is a right-to-work state, which means workers cannot be forced to join a union, and only one store was engaged in the talks, a union official pointed out.
"The dynamics are just different than they are up here," Sharon McCann, president of Local 1105 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and a lead negotiator, said yesterday.
In Seattle, union officials are resisting company efforts to create a two-tiered system, where new workers receive different pay and benefits.
In Washington, D.C., negotiators agreed to different health care programs for new workers during their first six years on the job.
Health care is perhaps the top issue for both sides in Western Washington.
Local negotiators return to the bargaining table Friday, and the last scheduled bargaining session is a week later.
Houston is "another example that this union and these employers can sit down and come to agreement without any work stoppages," said Melinda Merrill, a spokeswoman for the grocery chains.
Posted by UFCW 227 at May 12, 2004 05:03 PM