ShopRite Workers in Philly Area OK Contract

United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1776KS members at Philadelphia-area ShopRite Supermarkets have voted to ratify a new union contract for more than 2,500 employees of the Wakefern Food Corp. banner.

Associates from six southeastern Pennsylvania ShopRite employers – Ammons Supermarkets, Brown's Super Stores, Collins Family Market, Colligas Family Market, R & R ShopRite, and GMS Zallie Holdings – attended two union meetings on May 16 to hear details of the contract and vote on the tentative five-year agreement, which covers such issues as wage increases and benefit protections, the expansion of non-discrimination language, scheduling notification and additional shop stewards.

Negotiations between the two sides started early last year and continued over many months, concluding only this past May 3.

Philadelphia-based UFCW Local 1776KS represents more 35,000 union members, including supermarket workers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and New York.

Keasbey, N.J.-based retailer cooperative Wakefern, whose members operate more than 270 ShopRite supermarkets throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland, is No. 8 on Progressive Grocer’s 2019 Super 50 list of the top grocers in the United States.