Stop & Shop workers OK 3-year contract

Unionized Stop & Shop employees ratified a 3-year contract with the supermarket-store chain Sunday, ending weeks of negotiations and averting a strike.

In Connecticut, union members signaled their approval of the pact in voice votes at the Omni Hotel in New Haven and at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford. The contract, whose terms company and union officials had tentatively agreed to Saturday, affords workers wage increases and bonuses and maintains their pension and health benefits.

Two Connecticut chapters of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union are among the five that represent more than 36,000 Stop & Shop workers in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. All five chapters approved the contract Sunday.

About 500 members of Local 371, based in Westport, voted at the Omni, according to Brian Petronella, president of the local.

"Somebody made a motion from the floor and it was seconded," Petronella said. "Then everybody voiced their approval. There were no 'nays.' At that point, you could have heard a pin drop."

Some 800 members of Farmington-based Local 519 registered their approval in Hartford, Petronella said.

The two Connecticut locals represent about 15,000 Stop & Shop workers in the state.

Union members will receive wage increases totaling $1.15 an hour over the life of the contract, starting with a hike of 25 cents an hour in August. Full-time workers will also receive one-time bonuses of $750, while part-timers will receive bonuses ranging from $100 to $400 depending on their lengths of service.

The union also won additional money to maintain employees' pensions and health insurance, Petronella said.

"Our members who work at Stop & Shop receive the best benefits and wages in the retail food industry," he said.

"If you work in the industry and you're nonunion, you don't get the same pension benefits, you don't have affordable health care and you're not guaranteed a wage increase every year."

Stop & Shop workers' last contract expired Feb. 20, but the union had agreed to have its members stay on the job while it negotiated new terms with the Quincy, Mass.-based supermarket chain.

In southeastern Connecticut, Stop & Shop stores are located in East Lyme, Groton, Montville, Norwich, Old Saybrook, Pawcatuck, Stonington and Waterford.