King Soopers and Safeway told United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 reps they'd submit their "last, best and final" offer by the end of yesterday -- and they almost missed their own deadline. Just shy of 6 p.m., UFCW rep Laura Chapin confirmed via e-mail that nothing had shown up yet. But within the next hour, the packages arrived, and Chapin confirms that workers began reviewing the material at 7 a.m. this morning.
Chapin notes that no comments will be available until after they've gotten a chance to digest the information -- and decide whether it's something they, and their membership, can swallow.
Update, 3:08 p.m.: Just spoke to UFCW spokeswoman Laura Chapin, who says meetings slated for tomorrow at which union employees were expected to vote on the aforementioned proposals from King Soopers and Safeway have been "canceled/postponed" in order to give representatives more time to analyze them.
"They sent them to us so late on Monday that we didn't want to have the vote until we had a chance to go through them in detail -- and we want to run the numbers," Chapin says. "We decided we need to take the time we need, because in any contract, a comma here or there can make a big difference -- and in these proposals, we're looking at three-to-five years."
The bottom line? As of now, Chapin says, "People can keep shopping."
