By Joe Napsha
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
 


Grocery store workers at Giant Eagle Inc. voted Sunday and today on a new contract with the region's dominant supermarket chain. Some of Giant Eagle's grocery store workers and delicatessen and meat cutters voted yesterday and this morning, while the remaining workers were scheduled to meet and vote this evening in Greentree, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 23 said on its Web site.

Ronald Lenhart, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 23 of Canonsburg, yesterday afternoon declined to comment, pending a news conference scheduled for Tuesday morning to discuss the new contract. The contract covers about 5,300 Giant Eagle workers at 36 corporate-owned stores in Allegheny, Washington and Westmoreland counties, and Monongalia County in northern West Virginia.

In a statement posted on the union's Web site, Lenhart thanked Giant Eagle for a "great offer." The union's current three-year contract expires Saturday.

"There are many improvements that the members will appreciate," Lenhart said.

"This is the best offer that Giant Eagle has ever offered its employees," said Daniel Shapira, Giant Eagle's attorney and a member of the founding family of the supermarket chain.

Giant Eagle and the union on Thursday reached a tentative contract that the union's entire negotiating committee recommended for acceptance, the union.

Giant Eagle spokesman Dick Roberts declined to comment yesterday on the tentative contract offer to union members.

Giant Eagle has 139 corporate stores in Pennsylvania, western Maryland, Ohio and northern West Virginia.