Safeway (Denver & Colo.) vote could lock out King Soopers workers

http://www.denverpost.com/dnc/ci_12330932

By Elizabeth Aguilera
The Denver Post
Posted: 05/09/2009 12:05:00 AM MDT

Safeway workers voting today to accept a contract proposal or to authorize a strike will also be indirectly voting on whether their colleagues at King Soopers are locked out of work.

King Soopers and Safeway signed a Mutual Strike Assistance Agreement Friday. The agreement allows the nonstrike company to lock out its employees in support of the other company.

The move comes less than 48 hours before the current five-year contract with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 expires at midnight tonight. It also comes in the middle of a two-day vote ending today and after King Soopers workers asked for a contract extension.

It's a tactic the UFCW says is unfair to workers at the nonstrike company, said Crisanta Duran, Associate Legal Counsel for the Union.

"King Soopers should grant the extension their workers have asked for, rather than rely on devastating tactics like a lockout," Duran said.

The agreement "ensures no single company will be pressured to accept contract terms that would damage the grocery chains' economic future," said Diane Mulligan, spokeswoman for King Soopers.

FULL story at link.

David Sirota has been encouraging people to not shop at either store, should a strike occur.

We have an Associated grocer 4 blocks from here and the Whole Foods is a short drive west on Colfax. So at least we're conveniently covered for groceries and we don't get any meds at Soopers pharmacy. Farmers Markets ought to be opening about now, too.

They did the same to us back in '87. We got locked out when another chain was picketed.

Didn't last a week after the federal judge ruled we were unfairly locked out and could all file for unemployment.

The grocery chain owners choked on that ruling. They thought they would get their way, and it bit them in the ass.