LOS ANGELES, Feb. 29 (AP) — Grocery workers voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to approve a new contract with supermarket operators in Southern California. The vote ended a strike and a lockout that had inconvenienced millions of customers for nearly five months and had cost three major grocery chains hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.þþAfter two days of balloting, 86 percent of grocery workers who voted approved the contract negotiated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the union said Sunday in a statement.þþThe agreement, which was reached Thursday, covers 70,000 workers, most employed by Albertsons, Kroger and Safeway. It requires employees to pay for health benefits for the first time and includes two one-time bonuses for hours already worked. The contract offers no raises.þþMany employees said Sunday that they were eager to return to their jobs and that they had voted to ratify the deal, although some said the offer was not much different from one the union rejected in October.þþSunny Kim, 32 a service manager at Ralphs, a Kroger chain, said she was disappointed. ÿWhy did we go on strike?,ÿ Ms. Kim asked. ÿI lost a lot of money for nothing. I think the guys were misled.ÿþþSince Oct. 11, about 59,000 workers have been on strike or locked out. Others continued working at markets by special agreement while the contract was negotiated.þþ
Source: NY Times
