Latest on Calif. grocery strike — talks collapse

Yahoo News (Reuters) reports: “Calif. Grocery Strike Talks Collapse.”

Talks between supermarket chains and striking employees collapsed shortly after they resumed late Friday as store owners rejected labor’s first broad proposal to end a 10-week-old dispute that has idled 70,000 California workers.
Owners balked at a proposal by the United Food & Commercial Workers International union that would have cut employer funding of worker benefits by between $350 million and $500 million over a three-year contract.

Safeway Inc., Albertsons Inc. and Kroger Co., the chains affected by the strike, had been looking for about $1 billion in cuts. . . .

The breakdown in talks came after an 11-day hiatus, during which Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service director Peter Hurtgen met with the sides separately. It also comes after the union announced it would begin removing pickets from Southern California distribution centers beginning on Monday as a show of good faith.

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