LOS ANGELES (KNX) — Thousands of grocery store workers across Southern California Thursday night voted to avoid a proposed strike, and ratify a new contract with Ralphs and Albertsons-Vons-Pavilions.
The three-year contract includes wage increases, dental and vision plans, and protects pension benefits for more than 40,000 workers, according to City News Service.
The new contract also allows for health and safety committees to be set up at each Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons and Pavilions store, so workers “have a say on safety and security issues.”
The vote Friday was to ratify a deal reached last week, and also increases the number of guaranteed hours to 28 for part-time workers, according to a United Food and Commercial Workers International Union statement shared with the Associated Press.
Most workers, the AP reported, will receive pay increases of $4.25 per hour over the next three years, with some employees earning higher wages. The increases will start with a $2-per-hour increase retroactive to March 7, according to the Long Beach Post.
The ratified contract applies to around 540 stores in Southern California.
The agreement comes two years into a devastating global pandemic, in which many grocery store workers had no other option but to show up to work each day, risking their lives with the potential of contracting COVID-19 at a high-contact job.
“After more than two years of risking their lives to serve California’s communities as essential workers, reaching a fair contract with better wage increases, health care improvements, and protected pensions for these hard-working members could not have come at a more important time,” seven union locals said in a statement shared with the AP.
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