Union Votes To Accept Stop & Shop Contract Proposal

By JANICE PODSADA
The Hartford Courant
11:18 AM EST, March 7, 2010

Members of Local 919 of the United Food and Commercial Workers voted Sunday in Hartford to accept Stop & Shop Supermarket Co.'s new three-year contract proposal after union officials recommended its approval, ending weeks of extended negotiations and the threat of a strike by 10,000 employees of Local 919, based in Farmington.

In New Haven, the 5,000 members of Local 371, based in Westport, unanimously voted to ratify the proposed contract, Fox CT's John Charlton reports.

Workers piling into the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts early Sunday morning seemed relieved that a strike was going to be averted although many said they had very little detail as to what the new contract would contain or what they were voting on. Several thousand employees packed the theater to hear details of the companies final offer.

The company employs 36,000 workers in New England, who are represented by five union locals in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The previous contract expired Feb. 20 but union workers agreed to stay on the job as negotiations continued.

Stop & Shop employees, of whom about 80 percent are part-time workers, earn from $8.25 an hour, which is minimum wage in Connecticut, to $30 an hour, depending on job classification and length of service, according to union officials.

About 30 percent to 40 percent of the part-time workers are career part-timers with two or more years of service.

Late week the two sides appeared to be at an impasse and one of the five unions representing meat cutters and deli workers issued a strike notice to its membership.

But the two sides kept negotiating and late Saturday company officials and union negotiators announced they had reached a tentative agreement.

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