Contract approved by 83% of union members in NW grocery workers
negotiations.
After four months of often tortured negotiations, Safeway, Albertsons, QFC and Fred Meyer stores gained better control of soaring health care costs through the new deal. Workers, on the other hand, fought off harsh cuts that the same stores imposed elsewhere in the nation, such as new pay scales for new hires.
"I think it's a terrible contract. I think it's the best terrible contract in the country," said Andy Heyman, a meat cutter at Fred Meyer in Mill Creek. "All things considered, it was the best deal we could get without a strike."
While workers approved the offer by an 83 percent margin, many appeared resigned to the contract and relieved that it wasn't worse.
Debbie Thomsen, 46, expects to lose more than $100 a month because of changes to the contract, which covers 10,500 workers in the region. "When the economy is down, they just got you," said Thomsen, who works at Fred Meyer. "Everybody is afraid of what happened in California."
It sucks that the union feels some victory by not losing as much as they could have.