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UFCW members in Southern California were preparing for yet another struggle to defend their living standards and health care when a negotiated agreement was finally reached. The four year collective agreement shows the solidarity with the newcomers, who have had to accept inferior conditions and poorer career prospects that their more experienced colleagues. This two tier system imposed by employers when the bitter labour dispute three and a half years ago was ended was now dismantled to important parts. The UFCW victory in this densely unionised part of the United States will surely have a major influence also on other collective agreement negotiations, and on labour conditions in general.

UNI Commerce affiliate UFCW has reached a new collective agreement for its members in the supermarket industry in Southern California. This follows drawn out negotiations against the backdrop of the four month long labour conflict three and a half years ago.

The four-year collective agreements negotiated with leading retailers Kroger, Supervalu (which took over Albertsons' retail properties last year) and Safeway give 65,000 supermarket workers important wage increases and improvements in their health insurance.

When UFCW succeeded in saving its members' employer-supported health insurance through the 2004 labour conflict, concessions had to be make for new workers who entered employment after the agreement was signed. Now, important steps have been taken to dismantle this system of two tiers of workers, which has not proved really supportable.

This means that full career possibilities are now open also for the newcomers, and that the period of employment before they are entitled to health insurance is considerably shortened. From 18 months before it will now be 6 months. For workers' children, the improvement is even bigger, from 30 months of waiting down to six.

Reporting on the new agreement today, Los Angeles Times refers to it as a major success for UFCW.

- It looks like the companies pulled back and are taking a step away from the low-wage, low-benefit and high-turnover direction they were headed in," said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the UC (University of California) Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education to the newspaper.

The new collective agreement must still be approved by a vote among the workers, which will take place on Sunday.