Poughkeepsie Journal: Union of grocery store workers seeks strike authorization
The labor union representing about 1,000 workers at Stop & Shop in the mid-Hudson Valley has called on them to attend a strike authorization meeting Wednesday as the end of a four-year contract approaches. A strike authorization doesn't mean a strike. It gives the group's leaders the OK to call one. The union estimates that 80 percent of the stores' work force consists of union members and believes management's ability to run the stores during a strike would be limited. They say service would suffer.
Patrick Purcell, assistant to the president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500, said that negotiations for a renewed contract have dragged on. A federal mediator was called in and began consulting Monday, he said.
"The strike votes are being taken much later in the process because the process is going much slower," Purcell said.
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