Giant Food and Safeway supermarkets and the union representing 23,000 area grocery workers reached an agreement yesterday on a tentative labor contract, union officials said.
The area's two largest grocers and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union locals 27 and 400 worked into the early morning hours yesterday to hammer out a new agreement, according to the union officials.
Union members will vote on the contract tomorrow. Buddy Mays, president of Local 27, would not say whether the union would recommend a vote in favor of the contract.
Harry Burton, lead negotiator for the supermarkets, declined to comment, saying that any details would have to come from the union.
Giant will close its stores from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. tomorrow for the vote. Safeway said its stores will remain open.
Neither union nor supermarket officials would discuss specific terms of the tentative pact.
The two sides, which had been negotiating since mid-February, had been divided on key issues even as they approached a weekend deadline. The contract expired at midnight Saturday.
The UFCW had said on its Web site that the sides were in disagreement over wage, health care and pension issues.
Grocery stores have been trying to save on labor costs in recent years in the face of intensified competition from nonunionized rivals, both upscale and discount supermarket chains.
Grocery workers, who had made concessions in the last negotiations four years ago, had resisted additional givebacks. The 2004 contract created a two-tier system of employees, with new hires waiting longer for health coverage and paying higher co-pays. Deductibles increased for existing workers.
Area workers last staged a strike more than three decades ago. Local 27 last went on strike in 1963 and Local 400 in 1973.
andrea.walker@baltsun.com