Colorado Safeway and Albertsons grocery store workers strike

Safeway and Albertsons workers in Estes Park, Fountain and Pueblo — and employees at a Denver distribution center — will take to the picket lines Sunday morning, after nine months of negotiations with the grocers didn’t result in a new contract.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 announced Saturday that, unlike the February strike by King Soopers workers that started at 77 stores, the Safeway/Albertsons walkout will begin on a more limited scale, first impacting locations in just four Colorado cities.

The union, in its announcement, said the strike will expand, but the slow rollout is designed to allow the public time to understand the problems workers are facing, to allow Safeway/Albertsons time to understand the seriousness of the workers’ resolve and to reduce the hardship on shoppers and workers that result from a widespread strike.

UFCW Local 7 rejected the latest offer from Safeway and Albertsons, saying it fails to address key demands for staffing, livable wages and the protection of workers’ health and pension benefits.

Despite a contract extension in January and a strike authorization vote late May and this month, the parties couldn’t come to an agreement.

“It’s too bad that things have come to this point with Safeway/Albertsons, but the ongoing unfair labor practices, including bad-faith bargaining, as well as surveilling and threatening workers, have given us no choice but to strike,” Monique Trujillo, a Safeway worker in Fountain, said in a statement.

Stores in metro Denver, including Boulder and Castle Rock — as well as ones in Conifer, Evergreen, Grand Junction, Idaho Springs, Parker, Salida, Steamboat Springs and Vail — are involved in the labor dispute and could see walkouts as the strike expands.

Additional stores in Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Greeley, Loveland and Longmont will hold strike-authorization votes next week, the union said.

If the Safeway/Albertsons strike expands to include all participating stores, it will be the second-largest this year, behind a strike by approximately 10,000 King Soopers and City Market workers in February. That strike, which ran for 12 days, was halted for 100 days to allow for more negotiating.

This strike is the first time that Safeway workers in the state have voted to walk out over unfair labor practices since 1996. Back then, Safeway workers approved a strike in solidarity with striking King Soopers workers. Safeway locked out its workers before they could walk out.