Grocery Workers Approve New Contract

Grocery workers allied with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union have approved a new three-year contract with three major grocery chains—Ralphs, Vons/Pavilions and Albertsons—effectively sealing a deal for better health care benefits and wages.

The contract’s approval followed two days of voting by the workers across Southern CAlifornia, which ended Saturday.

“This deal protects our members’ health care and pension, and provides modest increases in wages,” said Rick Icaza, president of the grocery workers union, UFCW Local 770, on Saturday.

“This is a win for grocery workers, our communities, and our local economy,” Icaza said in a statement e-mailed to the media. “Without the unity and determination of our members, this deal would not have been possible. And without the unwavering support of consumers and the community, it would have been a much tougher fight. To those supporters, thank you.”

The new contract, which will take retroactive effect from March 7, 2011 and will extend to March 2, 2014, affects some 62,000 workers in a region that spans from Kern,
Inyo and Mono counties in northern California all the way to the Mexican border in the south and the Arizona border in
the east.