Contract negotiations between the Safeway and Giant grocery chains and their local employees’ union will come to a head this weekend as the clock runs out and the union prepares a potential strike. With the contracts officially set to expire on Saturday, it’s unclear whether an agreement can be reached ahead of time.
The United Food & Commercial Workers Union, which represents about 23,000 members in the Washington and Baltimore regions through Locals 400 and 27, is not optimistic.
“Unfortunately little progress has been made,” said UFCW Local 400 President C. James Lowthers, in a statement on the Local 400’s Web site. “The parties remain very far apart. … Strike preparations are now in place.”
Negotiations, which began Feb. 13, are supposed to continue through Sunday, according to the union. Members will vote April 1 to either ratify a proposal if there is one, or authorize a strike. Safeway, which has about 100 stores in the metro area, has been running newspaper ads announcing temporary hiring in order to prepare for a possible strike. The chain has to make sure it has a “bare-bones staff,” according to someone familiar with the negotiations, who added that this was a typical action taken as the expiration date nears.
Over the last four months, Safeway reached agreements with other UFCW chapters representing a total of 36,500 Safeway employees in Canada and California. The California negotiations lasted until the day the contract expired. Ahold, which owns the roughly 120 Giant Food stores in the Washington metro area, was able to strike a deal earlier this month with UFCW chapters in New England representing 43,000 workers from Stop & Shop, another one of its subsidiary companies. But these previous deals may not be a positive indicator.
“Bargaining is always a tedious process. … We’ve been a little bit surprised here that the companies haven’t been willing to move forward” on issues such as wages and health care, UFCW International spokeswoman Jill Cashen told The Examiner.
Harry Burton, who is representing Giant and Safeway in the negotiations, did not return repeated calls for comment.
