Puget Sound area grocery strike averted as union, stores reach tentative agreement
Oct 21, 2013, 5:21 PM | Updated: Oct 22, 2013, 5:47 am
Grocery workers celebrate a tentative agreement between union leaders and grocery stores to avert a strike Monday evening at Westlake Park in Seattle. (Brandi Kruse/KIRO Radio)
(Brandi Kruse/KIRO Radio)
A potential strike by grocery workers in the Puget Sound region has been averted, after union leaders and grocery management reached a tentative agreement.
Word of the tentative deal on a new contract came less than two hours before a threatened 7 p.m. strike.
“This tentative agreement has been unanimously recommended by the union member bargaining team. Details will not to be released until after union members themselves have had the opportunity to review the tentative agreement and vote on it,” said spokesman Tom Geiger with the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Vote meetings will be announced in the coming days.
Allied Employers, which represents QFC, Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyer stores, issued the following statement late Monday afternoon:
We are pleased to announce that we have reached a tentative settlement agreement with the unions that continues to preserve good wages, secure pensions and access to quality, affordable health care for our employees. Details of the tentative agreement will not be made public pending ratification.
While neither side would reveal details, the union had said key issues included wages, holiday pay and proposed cuts to health care benefits. The two sides have been in talks for more than six months.
“I want to salute, first of all, the courage and determination of our membership. I’m proud, proud to be part of this union and the leader of these members,” said Dave Schmitz, president of UFCW local 21 at a celebratory gathering at Seattle’s Westlake Park. “Our customers gave our members great strength and support because they told them day after day after day that what’s going on here is not right.”
“People deserve to have a better life. That’s what this is about,” Schmitz said. “This is a victory not just for grocery workers, it’s a victory for all workers.”
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn also released a statement upon hearing that an agreement had been reached. “I am glad to hear that the supermarket CEOs have made an offer worth putting to the union membership for a vote. And next time you are at the grocery store, let your local workers know you appreciate them.”
KIRO Radio’s Brandi Kruse contributed to this report
