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Business and Economic News
MPR News Staff

Workers at six Kowalski's Markets locations announce plans for three-day strike

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More than 600 union workers at six of the 11 Kowalski’s Markets grocery stores in the Twin Cities plan to hold a three-day strike next month.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 663 is accusing the retailer of unfair labor practices amid contract talks, and says its members have been working without a contract since March.

It has scheduled the strike for Aug. 4-6. It would affect Kowalski’s locations in Eagan, Eden Prairie and Excelsior, along with the Uptown, Lyndale and Parkview locations in Minneapolis.

Union officials, in a news release, accused Kowalski’s of “intimidation of its employees who were exercising their rights to participate in protected concerted activity, interfering with concerted union activity, illegal surveillance of union activity, and bargaining in bad faith.”

The union said it’s open to further negotiations before the scheduled strike. UFCW Local 663 said it’s seeking better wages and to keep “worker-driven health care” coverage.

In a statement provided to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, a Kowalski’s executive disputed claims of unfair labor practices, and said the company is offering employees “historically high wage increases” and an improved health care plan.

Earlier this year, several thousand workers at Cub Foods announced plans to go on strike — but that work stoppage was averted in April, just hours ahead of the strike, when the union reached a contract deal.

And a planned strike by union workers at Lunds & Byerlys grocery stores in the Twin Cities also was averted in June, when the retailer and the union reached a contract deal.