The food workers’ union representing more than 12,000 workers with Stater Bros. Markets reached a tentative agreement Wednesday, Aug. 6, on a new three-year labor contract at grocery stores throughout Southern California.
A spokeswoman with the United Food and Commercial Workers said that the new contract secures higher wages, pension contributions, healthcare improvements, staffing, and safety practices.
Further details will be shared with union members in upcoming meetings. No date was provided on when union members will vote on the contract covering workers at 172 stores located from the U.S. Mexico border to Bakersfield.
“This victory wouldn’t have been possible without the power of our collective action,” the UFCW said in a statement Wednesday evening. “Together, we stood up to the company’s disrespect and made it clear that we are a strong union family, united in solidarity to fight for the contract we deserve.”
The tentative agreement comes almost a month after the region’s largest grocery workers’ union agreed to a new a three-year contract with Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons Cos. and Cincinnati-based Kroger Cos. Two weeks later, the UFCW union voted to authorize an unfair labor practice strike against San Bernardino-based Stater Bros. — the first ever strike vote taken against the 89-year-old Stater Bros.
Also see: Union, supermarket chains reach tentative labor deal, averting strike
While the labor contracts involving 45,000 workers with Albertsons and Kroger were settled July 11, talks continued with the unionized Stater Bros., Encino-based Gelson’s Markets and Super A Foods, a family-owned supermarket chain based in Commerce that caters to Latino and Asian shoppers in the Los Angeles area.
The union also said Wednesday that workers with Super A Foods ratified their new contract last month. Gelson’s workers are currently negotiating to secure similar contract terms as those agreed to by 45,000 workers at Kroger and Albertsons, the UFCW said.
Stater’s spokeswoman Nancy Negrette confirmed in a statement issued to the Southern California News Group that the San Bernardino-based supermarket chain reached the tentative agreement with the UFCW.
“Negotiations were conducted in good faith, with both sides working hard to reach a fair deal that supports our teammates and holds the line on prices for our customers,” Negrette said. “We appreciate the collaborative effort and are encouraged that the union is recommending the agreement for ratification.”
Tough negotiations
In recent days, union officials had been saying privately that the talks were not going well.
On July 25, the UFCW said that its members voted to authorize their bargaining team to call for an Unfair Labor Practice strike, protesting alleged labor violations by Stater during the negotiations. An Unfair Labor Practice refers to actions taken by employers or unions that violate the rights of employees or union members, as defined by labor laws.
Earlier this year, after the contract with the UFCW expired on March 2, the relationship between the food workers and Stater Bros. deteriorated quickly when the chain executives told 63 courtesy clerks they were laid off because of inflation and tariffs. In a video, the San Bernardino supermarket chain’s chief executive blamed inflation and tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump for cutting the clerks at several Southern California stores.
Three days after the contract expired, more than 100 members of the UFCW picketed at the Stater Bros. store in Costa Mesa where courtesy clerks were laid off, urging the company to rehire them at other stores with job openings. Clerks also were laid off at three other stores, but the UFCW didn’t picket them.
The clerks learned of their layoffs in a video shown to them Feb. 17, six days before their last day. The 10-minute video, viewed by the Southern California News Group, featured CEO Peter Van Helden, who discussed “reducing costs” at the 172-store chain, ranging from cutting labor and electricity costs with solar-powered panels to “all kinds of things.”
In the video, Van Helden blamed the layoffs on significant inflation, “more than I’ve ever seen in my career,” with retail prices jumping 30% from levels seen four years ago. “I’m pretty certain that in the future we’re going to have to continue to reduce the number of jobs in this company. It’s a fact.”
Jack Brown, who served as president and chief executive officer of Stater Bros. from 1981 until 2017, proudly boasted in an Orange County Register interview in 2016 that the company had never laid off an employee.
Even during the 2003-2004 grocery strike and lockout, Brown kept the stores open and accepted whatever agreement the union made with the other major supermarket chains in California. “It was doing the right thing for right reasons. The right thing was to continue to serve our customers and to keep our people employed,” he said at the time.
The pace of the talks between the UFCW and chains was briefly disrupted in late March when the federal mediator assigned to their negotiations was fired by the Trump administration. The mediator, Isael Hermosillo, was later hired back independently by the two sides to help in the discussions.