Key Food Lockout Could End As Union Reenters Negotiations

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Dozens of Key Food workers might soon reach a deal with executives who have locked them out of work for weeks if a fourth round of negotiations Tuesday is successful, union leaders said.

The 38 meat department workers — from seven Key Foods locations in Park Slope, Sunset Park, Greenpoint, New Urecht Key Foods and Long Island — are in their fourth week without work as their union negotiates for better wages and benefits. The workers, who have been holding rallies outside the Key Food locations almost every day since, will enter their fourth round of negotiations Tuesday through their union and a federal mediator.

Union Executive Director Kelly Egan said she is hopeful that this time around the union and Key Food can reach a deal, or at the very least agree to allow the employees back to work as negotiations continue.

"We are keeping our hopes up that these members can be put back to work," she said. "The first time was nothing, the second time they moved al little bit...and then the last time the union moved a little bit. So now, if the back and forth continues, (we can have) actually fruitful negotiations."

Egan emphasized that the most important thing right now is to ensure the employees can get back to work even if a deal isn't reached.

Though it may seem to passersby that the workers are striking, the stand-off with the company is actually a lockout, not a strike, Egan said. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 342 chapter has requested that their members be allowed back to work every day since they were first taken off the schedules earlier this month.

"We have a return to work request to the employer," Egan said. "Every day we say, 'Members are here, they want to go back to work.'"

The workers began to be taken off their jobs and replaced with temporary employees as union negotiations reached the stalemate.

Employees have said that the contract negotiations, which happen every four years or so, had never reached this point in the last four decades, but recently the company started threatening to take away retirement and medical benefits.

Workers said they haven't had a pay increase in four years and are now being asked to pay for their own healthcare starting next month.

Many customers have boycotted the stores in solidarity with the workers, employees said. Some vendors to the store, like Coca-Cola or beer distributors, have also started refusing to make deliveries as the lockout drags on.

The New York union's fight resembles similar strikes going on at Stop & Shops in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Those strikes went on for 11 days and ended last week, The Connecticut Post reports.

Key Food has declined to comment on the New York strike.

Update: Tuesday afternoon negotiations did not result in a deal, according to a union spokeswoman. The union scheduled another round of negotiations for Thursday, May 2 in Long Island.