האגודה הישראלית לחקר יחסי עבודה

“This contract represents a significant victory for our members and secures their wages, retirement security and control over their schedules,” said Rick Icaza, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770. “It provides for nearly a dollar an hour in wage increases and shows that our members’ solidarity and unity was successful in beating back Draconian takeaways from the corporations which own these grocery stores.”

After months of negotiations, the grocery chains and the union reached a tentative contract agreement on Thursday.

Under the deal, the highest-paid butchers, cashiers and general merchandise clerks will get a 30-cent-per-hour raise this year, applied retroactively to when the last contract expired in March, union officials told the Los Angeles Times. They’ll earn another 30-cent raise in 2017, plus a 25- cent raise in 2018.

Ralphs and Albertsons will raise pay for entry-level cashiers, who used to earn 20 cents more than the minimum wage, to 40 cents above the highest applicable wage floor. That means that new workers at Los Angeles stores will earn 40 cents more than the local minimum wage of $10.50, above the state minimum of $10, The Times reported.

Everyone else will be entitled to a 10-cent raise roughly every four to five months. The union was unable to win bigger pay bumps for those less- experienced workers, union officials said.

But the union says it got the stores to back down on their attempt to raise the retirement age to 65, from 60, and on proposed cuts to holiday pay, according to The Times.

The workers voted in June to authorize a strike if a new deal wasn’t reached by Monday. Separate negotiations with pharmacy workers are still underway.

–City News Service

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