Grocery workers join forces, seek more clout in talks

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/417790.html

Sacramento-area grocery workers, by extending their labor contract two months, are firming up an alliance with Bay Area workers that's designed to increase their bargaining power.

Nearly three years after accepting contract concessions, Northern California leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers believe that presenting a unified front of more than 55,000 workers to management will help them recover lost ground.

UFCW 8-Golden State, based in Roseville, agreed late Thursday to a contract extension with Raley's, Safeway Inc. and Save Mart Supermarkets. The contract, which was due to expire today, will now run out Dec. 1.

The move is significant because it means Sacramento's contract expires the same date as contracts covering three Bay Area locals. That "is obviously going to increase our leverage at the bargaining table," said Jacques Loveall, president of the Roseville local.

Ken Jacobs, chairman of the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, called the alliance "a real sea change."

Jacobs said the UFCW has learned its lesson from three years ago. Then, the locals in California were less unified and workers took contract concessions after grocery executives invoked the coming threat from low-cost, nonunion Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

FULL story at link.