One Twin Cities labor deal reached, another ratified
A deal between the Service Employees International Union Local 26, which represents around 4,000 building cleaners in the Twin Cities reached an agreement with five maintenance companies on Sunday. The new three-year contract includes increases in health benefits, guaranteed 40-hour weeks by 2012, and the ability to use environmentally friendly cleaning products. The agreement mean that the union called off a strike planned for Tuesday. Workers will vote on the ratification of the contract on Saturday. The agreement comes right after over 11,000 United Food and Commercial Workers Local 653 members voted to ratify a three-year contract with supermarkets in the Minneapolis area. The contract freezes wages, cuts retirement benefits and sacrifices a week's vacation pay. The UFCW Local 653 had somewhere between $60 and $80 million in unfunded pension liabilities that had to be resolved.
See "One Twin Cities labor deal reached, another ratified", Jackie Crosby, Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 1, 2010