Dive Brief:

• Unionized workers at United Natural Foods, Inc.’s (UNFI) Cub Foods stores in the Twin Cities area have called off a two-day strike, which was set to start Friday at 33 corporate-owned Cub stores, after a “historic” contract win, the local union announced Friday. 
• The tentative agreement would provide workers with raises of $2.50 to $3.50 an hour by Spring 2024, and also create a “landmark” safety committee, said United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 663, which represents those workers as part of its more than 17,000 members in Minnesota and Iowa. 
• The contract, which the union described as the “first comprehensive victory for [the] pandemic’s retail heroes,” follows labor woes in the grocery industry.

Dive Insight:

The local union said it also won full-time position security for 300 people in the bargaining unit, which was mostly made up of part-time workers. The bargaining committee is organizing a ratification vote for the contract for April 11.

“This is a union of people who sacrificed beyond imagination, to keep Minnesotans fed during the pandemic. It is no surprise, then, that these grocery workers were able to organize the most powerful contract campaign the Twin Cities grocery industry has seen in decades,” UFCW Local 663 President Rena Wong said in the announcement. “The bargaining committee believes that this tentative agreement respects, protects, and pays our members fairly.”

The union said that its members have continued to keep working since their union contract expired on March 4. The majority (94.5%) of Local 663 members voted in favor of the strike on Tuesday, with the union claiming that UNFI management engaged in “unfair labor practices” during bargaining.

The strike would have affected nearly three dozen stores — roughly one-third of Cub’s total locations — and 3,000 workers, according to local news reports. 

Other grocers are also facing labor tensions. Earlier this year, King Kullen and a local union reached a tentative agreement that avoided a strike after the union voted to authorize a walkout. Last fall, Kroger and union members in central Ohio also averted a strike by reaching a deal. 

Trader Joe’s is currently seeing efforts to unionize at several of its stores after workers at a location in Hadley, Massachusetts, became the first in the chain to unionize last summer. Two more stores since then have voted to join the union, Trader Joe’s United.