DENVER (AP) — A federal mediator gathered information about health-care costs amid negotiations in a contract dispute between unionized grocery workers and three major supermarket chains Wednesday.
The contract between the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger-owned King Sooper chains expired Sept. 11, but both sides agreed to an extension until mid-October. Sticking points are the grocery chains' proposals to shift more health-care costs to store workers and to reduce wages for newly hired employees.
The mediator wants to find "new pieces of the health care puzzle" to try to draw up an agreement, union spokesman Dave Minshall said.
The contract covers about 17,000 workers in more than 200 stores, mostly along the Front Range.