Grocery store and union negotiators neared a deal Wednesday to end the California supermarket strike and lockout, according to people familiar with the talks.
A settlement could be reached as early as today, they said, although they cautioned that negotiators continued to struggle with certain aspects of the contract they were sketching out under the supervision of a federal mediator.
The deal on the table would trim supermarket employees' health benefits and create a second tier of new workers who would earn less than those hired before the dispute began, according to sources who know the rough details of the proposed contract.
Negotiators for the UFCW and the companies -- Albertsons Inc., Kroger Co., which owns Ralphs, and Safeway Inc., the parent of Vons and Pavilions -- met into the night Wednesday. It was their 15th straight day of talks aimed at ending a dispute that has cost the companies combined sales of about $1.5 billion, inconvenienced millions of consumers and left tens of thousands of people without steady work for nearly five months.
Union and company executives said they couldn't comment on any progress made, citing a news blackout imposed by Peter J. Hurtgen, head of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. And the UFCW leadership urged the rank and file not to leave their strike posts.
"Do not be misled by rumors or false information that a settlement has already been reached," UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles said on its website.
But word about a possible breakthrough raced up and down picket lines.
"I'm feeling cautious optimism," said Ed Tillerson, a strike captain in Riverside County. "I've gotten my hopes up before and they have been crushed. I'm waiting for some good news."
In Pacific Palisades, where strikers carried umbrellas along with their picket signs to fend off the rain, the buzz had started late Tuesday, when an official from UFCW Local 1442 left a message on the union hotline saying he hoped to have "good news" to report Wednesday. Stories fast made the rounds: One picket captain in the Inland Empire told his troops that the UFCW was arranging to rent meeting space that could serve as a polling place for union voters Saturday and Sunday.
"There have been rumors since Day One," said Kim Mosher, a union representative for Local 770. "Until I see something in writing, I'm not going to get my hopes up."
Any new contract would have to be ratified by union members.
