Negotiators for three major supermarket chains and Southern California store clerks agreed to get back to haggling today to try to resolve differences over wages and health benefits. Talks between the Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons chains and the United Food and Commercial Workers union hadn't been held since Thursday, when the markets refused to meet a union demand for a comprehensive contract offer by noon on that day. Rhetoric and tensions then escalated over the weekend as the union got strike authorization from its Ralphs and Vons members during a vote Sunday. Albertsons workers had voted in March to authorize a strike. But Tuesday, spokesmen for the supermarkets and the union said that negotiations would resume today.
See "Grocers, union agree to pick up negotiations", Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times, June 26, 2007