Southern California-based supermarket chains Albertsons, Ralphs, and Vons have been engaged in negotiations with United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW), a union that represents about 60,000 workers employed by the three chains.  Talks have been going between the four groups since February 2014 without any progress.  The UFCW recently announced that the current contract with the union had been unanimously extended to May 11^th, 2014 so negotiations can continue, and invited federal mediators to join the process.

Federal mediation is not uncommon for large labor contract negotiations, and in fact federal mediators were eventually involved in the two previous negotiation rounds between the UFCW and the supermarkets, including the 2002-2003 strike which saw union picket lines outside supermarkets across Southern California.

Describing the current state of the talks as “glacial,” local union leaders expressed discouragement about the possibility of a speedy resolution despite the addition of federal mediators.  In 2011, federal mediators were invited to join negotiations in April and a new contract was not announced until September – and even then, the compromise contract only spanned two years, resulting in the current resumption of negotiations.

Still, the mutual extension of the current contract combined with the invitation to the federal mediators is viewed as encouraging.