05-07-2025
Unionized Safeway workers in Colorado reach tentative deal to end strike, union says
The union representing thousands of grocery store workers in Colorado and Wyoming says it's reached a tentative deal with Safeway to end a strike impacting unionized workers at around 50 stores across Colorado.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 says after bargaining negotiations, union representatives achieved several demands, which include wage increases, bonuses based on seniority, fully-funded and improved healthcare benefits, an expanded vacation cash-out policy, and terminating temporary replacement workers.
The new agreement will need to be ratified in a future union meeting, according to UFCW Local 7, but the union celebrated the gains as a win.
"We have reached a fully recommended tentative agreement! The strike is over," the union said in a statement on Saturday.
Before the agreement was finalized, Safeway also touted the negotiations as fruitful in a statement on Thursday, in which a company spokesperson said, "We are pleased that we have reached a fully recommended tentative agreement with UFCW Local 7. This offer allows us to put more money in our associates' paychecks and maintain affordable health care; while also securing their pensions for retirement and we are eager for our associates to vote on it."
A Safeway store during a protest against the corporation in Littleton, Colorado on Monday, June 16, 2025.
AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post via Getty Images
CBS News Colorado reached out to Safeway, whose parent company is Albertsons, for comment Saturday morning.
The strike began almost a month ago in early June, following nine months of failed negotiations, a union representative said at the time. The strike had spread to 46 of Safeway's 103 stores across the state -- from Fort Collins down to Pueblo, and as far west as Grand Junction out east to Fort Morgan -- and included a distribution center in Denver.
Those workers who went on strike must return by Monday, but can return sooner if they want or need to, the union said.
The tentative deal comes just two days after unionized King Soopers workers reached a similar deal with that grocery chain.
