About 8,500 Kroger employees in stores in southwest Ohio, northern Kentucky and southeast Indiana have rejected the company's latest contract offer and authorized their union to call a strike if necessary. A spokesman for United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1099, says that while the union realizes the potential hardships of becoming involved with a strike, they want to reach a settlement that would provide affordable health care for its members. Kroger says that they need workers to pay for more of their health care costs in order for the company to survive competition from nonunion stores like Wal-Mart.
See "Kroger Employees Reject Contract Offer", The New York Times, October 13, 2004