Photo: Mr.Awesome2036 / Wikimedia Commons / CC0
STOCKTON, Calif. – About 1,700 workers at what the Teamsters call the nation’s largest Safeway warehouse have ratified a new five-year contract, the union said Monday. Teamsters Local 439 said the agreement passed by a 95 percent margin and includes wage and pension increases, lifetime health coverage for active employees and retirees, and protections against automation.
The photograph shows a Safeway store in Chico, Calif., taken in April 2020. It is a file image of the Safeway brand, not the Stockton warehouse or the ratification vote.
The details below come from the union’s announcement, issued at 11:34 a.m. Eastern on November 9. The release did not include a comment from Safeway, and the contract text was not published with it. The terms are the union’s description of the agreement.
According to the union, workers won a combined $12 in wage and pension increases over the life of the agreement. The release did not say whether that figure is an hourly amount, a total, or how it divides between wages and pensions, so the value to individual workers cannot be determined from it.
The Teamsters also said the contract secures lifetime medical, health and welfare, and dental benefits for active employees and retirees. It covers four newly organized job classifications at the warehouse: traffic clerks, inventory control clerks, quality control clerks and automation clerks.
On technology, the union said members won protections from automation and language ensuring that any jobs created through future technology will remain union jobs. The release did not describe how those provisions would work or which technologies they cover.
“Going into negotiations, we knew we had to win an industry-leading contract,” said Gilbert Avila, chief steward and bargaining committee member for Local 439. “Our warehouse is the largest in the country, and other employers are watching as the fight for strong Teamsters contracts at Safeway continues nationwide.”
Sal Lomeli, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 439, said members stood firm at the bargaining table. The union said the group was prepared to strike and that the bargaining committee told the company from the start that it would grant no extensions past the contract’s expiration date.
Tom Erickson, director of the Teamsters Warehouse Division, called it “the strongest Safeway agreement in the country.” That description is the union’s own characterization; the release did not compare the terms with other Safeway contracts.
The vote matters beyond one site because distribution centers sit at the center of grocery supply chains, and the union framed the result as a benchmark for other Safeway bargaining. Questions that remain include the contract’s full wage schedule, its effect on Safeway’s costs, and whether the company will comment. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says it represents more than 1.3 million workers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.
JBizNews Desk | Stockton, Calif.
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