Colorado Grocery Workers Appear Ready To Strike

The Colorado Springs Gazette reported Wednesday that the Colorado grocery workers took one step closer to striking this week when they walked out on negotiations with Safeway after the grocery store chain refused to change its contract offer:

Safeway said the union's offer was little changed its last proposal in early September. "In response, (Safeway) expressed an unwillingness to change its position further based on the union's lack of meaningful movement," Kris Staaf, a Safeway spokeswoman in Denver, said in a press released Wednesday.
No further talks have been scheduled.

In response, the local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers union is asking for permission from its international headquarters to call a strike. According to the union's website, the strike could be called this week.

In an interview with Westword's Michael Roberts, Laura Chapin, spokeswoman for UFCW Local 7, said the union would still like to come to an agreement through negotiations, but was not optimistic that Safeway would consider their offer.

What's next? "Our preference, by far, is to work this out at the negotiating table, but they don't seem willing to meet us halfway," she says. "So now, once we finalize the sanction from the international, we'll see what the company does when they're actually faced with workers willing to go on strike over wages and pensions."

Colorado Pols reports that King Soopers has distributed a letter to its employees saying they would lock out employees if Safeway workers strike