Hannaford Inks 3-Year Agreement With DC Workers

Employees of a South Portland, Maine, Hannaford Supermarkets distribution center have voted 150-38 to accept a new three-year contract that boosts their hourly wage and maintains their health coverage while lowering the hourly wage paid to new hires, according to a published report.

The vote came a month after members of Dedham, Mass.-based United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) 1445 rejected the company’s contract offer and authorized a strike. A week later, workers walked off the job for 24 hours ahead of negotiations.

The distribution center, which supplies 103 New England supermarkets, is operated by Delhaize America Distribution LLC, a subsidiary of Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch parent company of Scarborough, Maine-based Hannaford.

“United Food and Commercial Workers 1445 has accepted Delhaize America Distribution LLC’s original offer, which was a fair and competitive agreement,” Ahold Delhaize spokeswoman Christy Phillips-Brown said in a statement supplied to the Portland Press Herald. “Delhaize America Distribution LLC is pleased the situation is now resolved and looks forward to continuing to serve its customers.”

The new contract gives all DC employees an hourly pay raise of 50 cents for each of the next three years, and health care coverage will stay the same for the length of the contract, which is retroactive to Feb. 17.

Under the deal, however, new employees will get $16 an hour instead of the current $20. “I would like to have seen more, but that is what we settled for,” UFCW 1445 President Jeff Bollen told the Press Herald. “Everyone wanted to get back to work.”