Grocery chains ready to bring back workers

LOS ANGELES -- Supermarket chains targeted in the 4 1/2-month-long Southern California grocery strike began moving Monday to get thousands of idled clerks back to work, and get customers back to their stores.

A day after United Food and Commercial Workers union members voted to ratify a new labor contract, supermarket operators Albertsons Inc., Kroger Co., and Safeway Inc. were asking workers to call in and get ready to report.

The chains also prepared to release thousands of temporary workers who were brought in during the strike.

"We expect the earliest we'll have our employees back will be Friday," said Sandra Calderon, a spokeswoman for Safeway, which runs the Vons and Pavilions chains.

Calls to Albertsons and Kroger's Ralphs chain were not immediately returned Monday.

But on its Web site, Ralphs told workers they could be scheduled to work as early as 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

The company's letter to employees hinted that some fence-mending might be needed to repair lingering ill feelings.

"We want you to know how much you were missed and how glad we are to have you returning to work," the statement said. "We are proud to have you as part of the Ralphs team, and we look forward to seeing you back in our stores."

Union leaders ordered the strike against Vons and Pavilions chains on Oct. 11. Albertsons and Ralphs then locked out their employees. In all, about 59,000 workers were idled.

The new contract requires employees to pay for health benefits for the first time and contains no raises.

After months of working together as a bargaining unit, the companies return to being competitors and will have to vie to regain market share lost to other supermarkets during the strike.

Calderon said Vons has a marketing and advertising plan in place to "help us win our customers back."

"We know that the strike was a huge inconvenience to the customers and we also know that a lot of our customers made the choice to shop elsewhere, so because of that we have our work cut our for us," she said.