Catherwood LibraryILR School

The United Food and Commercial Workers yesterday reached a tentative settlement with Safeway Inc., covering the 9,000 unionized workers at the 113 Chicago Dominick's stores taken over by grocery giant in 1998 (see WIT's for Nov. 7, and 11, 2002). Responding to pressure from the union, customers and investors, Safeway yesterday backed down from its hard-line position of a wage freeze and benefit cuts or shuttering the entire Dominick's chain (see WIT for Nov. 15, 2002), as workers prepared to picket forty Dominick's stores. Under the terms of the agreement, an extension of the old contract will preserve workers' benefits and seniority-based wage increases, while Safeway Inc. looks for a single buyer to take Dominick's off its hands---differing from the union's proposal of last week primarily in that Safeway will be able to consider splitting the chain between multiple buyers.