Stop & Shop workers were still on strike Wednesday as ongoing labor negotiations with the Mass.-based grocery giant remain in flux.
About 31,000 workers in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, represented by five local chapters of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), have now been out of work for seven days since walking off the job last Thursday amid stalled labor talks.
The union’s three-year labor agreement with Stop & Shop expired Feb. 23.
A UFCW official from Local 919 (Farmington) on Tuesday said Stop & Shop has been losing an estimated $20 million a day as almost all 240 stores in the three states have been mostly empty over the last week. Officials note this is an especially busy time of year for Stop & Shop as Easter Sunday approaches.
Negotiation hangups between the supermarket chain, owned by Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, and the union have largely centered around healthcare coverage and pension plans for current employees and future hires.
UFCW said the company’s labor offer aims to dramatically increase out-of-pocket healthcare costs and remove about 1,000 employees’ spouses off their healthcare plan.
They also have criticized Stop & Shop for proposing that the average full-time worker pay $893 in weekly healthcare premiums over three years and that part-time staff pay $603 in weekly healthcare premiums over that span.
The grocer is also looking to reduce monthly pension benefits for most new hires by 32 percent and by 72.2 percent for the majority of part-time employees, the union says.
Stop & Shop, which placed advertisements in several newspapers across the state this week, pushed back on Monday and Tuesday as it worked to upend “misinformation” surrounding labor negotiations.
In a statement, the company said it has offered to pay a minimum of 92 percent of health premiums for family coverage and at least 88 percent for individual coverage, which are both higher shares than what other large-scale retailers provide employees.
The offer, Stop & Shop said, also exceeds packages provided by the federal government, which pays 72 percent of its employees’ health premiums.
Deductibles would not change, remaining between $200 to $300 since 2007, the company said.
On Tuesday, the supermarket said its pension plan also surpasses benefits offered by other industry leaders.
The company has also offered $75,000 buyout packages to tenured staff.
“Our defined benefit pension plan for all union associates – 100 percent funded by the company – is an important part of these negotiations,” the company said, adding they are offering to increase contributions to the pension fund by 20 percent “at the same rate for current full- and vested part-time associates.”
Workers in Cromwell were growing confident early Monday morning that a labor deal would soon be made, but a new pact has not yet been announced.
Numerous high-profile Democrats, including Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and former Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, now state Democratic chairwoman, have stood with picketers at Connecticut stores this week.
The strike is the first against Stop & Shop since 1988.
