By making a late-night deal with its union workers, Save Mart Supermarkets has turned up the heat on two of its chief rivals.
The tentative contract agreement with the United Food and Commercial Workers, announced late Tuesday, does more than simply avert a strike by 11,000 employees against Modesto-based Save Mart and its Lucky subsidiary. It also creates a kind of bargaining template that could force Raley's and Safeway Inc., the other two unionized grocers in Northern California, to adopt similar packages.
What's more, it weakens the ability of Safeway and Raley's to withstand a walkout, giving them less clout at the bargaining table.
"It definitely puts pressure on the other two companies," said Ken Jacobs, a labor-relations expert at the University of California, Berkeley.
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