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Jury Awards Cal. Man $18M for Harassment LOS ANGELES (AP) - A jury has ordered The Vons Companies Inc. to pay more than $18 million in damages to a former employee who claimed the supermarket chain fired him after he filed a report accusing a female supervisor of sexual harassment. The Simi Valley jury awarded more than $16 million in punitive damages to James Stevens on Friday, two days after ordering Vons to pay the one-time inventory clerk $1.7 million for economic loss and emotional distress, said attorney Gloria Allred, who represented Stevens. Stevens, a Ventura County resident who worked...

Tucson Police evacuated the Safeway store on Prince road and Campbell avenue for much of Saturday afternoon and into evening after an employee spotted a suspicious package. According to police, an employee called police at about 2:14 p.m. Saturday afternoon after spotting a package below the customer service counter. Sgt. Decio Hopffer said that when the bomb squad arrived and evacuated the store, "The bomb technician saw things in it that led them to believe that this was a live device and they had to take the necessary precautions to make sure no one was going to get hurt." Hopffer...

Bomb Scare At Tucson Grocery Store Jenny Rose KGUN9 News An explosive situation tied up the intersection of Prince and Campbell for hours after someone found a bomb at a grocery story. Jenny Rose has the latest. http://www.kgun9.com/NewsArticle/tabid/111...38/Default.aspx

I am writing this letter in answer to article concerning high gas prices, in the May 3 edition of the Calvert Independent. In addressing the high gasoline prices, I am not surprised to see the slant, or “spin,” that the greedy oil companies are the blame for the high prices. It never fails to amaze me when liberal minds continually spout the talking points spewed forth daily by the media. Why are gasoline prices high? Who is to blame? First, we have the onerous fuel blend regulations of the Carol Browner EPA of 1997, creating nearly 30 fuel blends nationwide....

Northern California's food fight is coming to a store near you. It's already hit Mary Thomatos, a loyal Albertsons customer until the chain closed its J Street store near her east Sacramento home last summer. Now the future of the other 25 Albertsons in the Sacramento region is in doubt after their parent company was sold last month. With Ralphs Supermarkets closing eight area stores soon, the grocery landscape is shifting so rapidly that by summer many consumers may no longer recognize their neighborhood store. Such change, those in the industry say, is something most of us should get used...

Safeway, based in Pleasanton, Calif., said it will close 26 underperforming stores by year's end, including nine Tom Thumb stores in Dallas-Fort Worth. It will also shutter 16 Randalls stores in Houston and one in Austin. That will leave Safeway with 62 stores in Dallas-Fort Worth, 36 in Houston and 14 in Austin. It plans to remodel many of the remaining Texas stores to create so-called lifestyle centers, with higher-end products *** Analysts viewed the closings as a better alternative than exiting the market – an option never suggested by the company but repeatedly mulled by industry observers. They also...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Three major grocers have reached a new labor agreement with 19,000 supermarket workers in Northern California, averting a threatened strike and laying the foundation for a possible truce with thousands of other employees in San Francisco Bay area stores. Jack Loveall, the union leader who negotiated the tentative contract with Safeway Inc., Albertson's Inc. and Kroger Co., celebrated the agreement as a significant breakthrough for supermarket workers fighting management's cost-cutting efforts. "Our challenge from the start was to protect the superior wages and benefits (supermarket workers) have enjoyed for decades," Loveall said in a taped message...

Grocery unions are escalating their efforts to collect customer pledges to boycott Safeway if ongoing contract talks break down, even as legal squabbles over the tactic proceed behind the scenes. Hundreds of members from 50 state labor and community groups this afternoon will solicit customer support at 54 Safeway stores in 25 cities across the Bay Area, according to the leaders of regional United Food and Commercial Workers locals. It's a significant step up from a similar four-city action held a month ago. The legal battle and swelling boycott campaign together speak of increasing tensions at the bargaining table, where...

Safeway Inc. yesterday said that for the first time, it will open many of its supermarkets on Christmas Day, a move that triggered an angry protest from the union representing the grocer's Washington area employees. Safeway will become the region's first -- and only -- major supermarket chain to operate stores on Christmas, one of the last holidays observed by U.S. grocers, which now routinely open on Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

Safeway Food and Drug Stores Masters of Deception The Safeway system is carefully crafted to deceive their customers using an entire suite of elements. Such as their Club Card, computers, cash registers, ads, slogans, merchandise location, sign location, and the small print on their signs. Each assertion described below, is backed up by specific examples. This web page is based entirely on my own observations as a customer, with no knowledge or assistance from the inside. If you feel that anything herein is inaccurate or exaggerated, I would really appreciate it if you would please use my feedback form and...

Conservative Talk Show host Joe Crummey is taking calls concerning the latest news about the grocery store lock-out and strike. Union officials were in Los Angeles yesterday to discuss current negotiations. Joe Crummey believes the grocery store strikers are being misled by their Union. He suggests that workers re-read their contract. Page 12 of their contract says that workers get $4.04 (company paid insurance benefit per hour) for every hour they work. Mentions also that civil disobedience has now been suggested by a sympathetic union supporter.

Grocery Union Threatens Pickets Across U.S., Canada Tue Dec 16, 7:55 PM ET By Sue Zeidler LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Union leaders on Tuesday called for pickets of Safeway stores across North America in support of 70,000 Southern California grocery workers who have been out of work for two months in a contract dispute with Safeway and two other leading chains. Over the next few weeks, the United Food and Commercial Workers union said it would ask consumers not to shop at Safeway stores. Protests could also broaden to include acts of civil disobedience by supporting religious groups, a union...

<p>Employees and shoppers at Costco in Salem board Cherriots buses after the store was evacuated before noon Tuesday after several became ill.</p> <p>At least 24 suffer an illness.</p> <p>Five shoppers passed out inside Costco on Tuesday, causing the evacuation of more than 200 customers and employees.</p>

Teamsters Join Calif. Supermarket Strike By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer EL MONTE, Calif. - The Teamsters union said Monday its members will stop delivering groceries to three Southern California supermarket chains where grocery clerks have been on strike or been locked out for more than a month. The move effectively shuts off supplies to Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons stores during the critical Thanksgiving shopping week. The action, taken after the striking clerks moved to expand their picket lines to regional distribution centers, was called a "silver bullet" by Jim Santangelo, president of Teamsters Joint Council 42 in El Monte....

Safeway's chief executive said Thursday that striking Southern California grocery workers won't get a better contract offer as the Pleasanton grocer reported another quarter of lackluster sales. The nation's third-largest supermarket chain said it is willing to take a temporary hit at its 289 Vons stores -- where picketers are turning customers away -- in exchange for cheaper labor costs in the long run.

<p>Fending off competition from discount chains while watching third- quarter profits drop by 28 percent, Safeway must now contend with an even bleaker picture in the fourth quarter, as its striking workers in Southern California threaten to drive down sales.</p>

Workers Vote To Strike Tuesday POSTED: 12:16 p.m. EDT October 13, 2003 UPDATED: 12:21 p.m. EDT October 13, 2003 CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Union workers at 44 Kroger stores in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky voted Monday to strike after rejecting the company's contract offer. More than 2,000 members of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 approved the strike Monday morning at a meeting in Charleston, more than the two-thirds majority required to authorize a strike, said Local 400 President Jim Lowthers. The union represents about 3,300 workers for the Cincinnati-based chain in 37 stores in West Virginia, five in...

Check food bought at Safeway, FDA says The Associated Press A top Food and Drug Administration official stressed Saturday that the tampering concerns being investigated by his agency and the FBI are limited to Safeway stores in Western Washington. In an interview from Washington, D.C., Peter Pitts, an associate FDA commissioner, said he's "not sure what's being tested and what it's being tested for." But he said food items purchased recently from Safeway stores should be inspected for indications the packaging has been disturbed or "anything that might look unusual to the consumer." Items that might have been tampered with...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Slumping supermarket giant Safeway Inc. reported a fourth-quarter loss Thursday of $1.05 billion, reflecting the grocer's continuing headaches with two major acquisitions in Texas and Illinois. The loss of $2.37 per share for the October-December period contrasted with a profit of $353.6 million, or 70 cents per share, the previous year. Fourth-quarter sales totaled $10.01 billion, up from $9.93 billion a year earlier. Safeway absorbed $1.5 billion in fourth-quarter charges to account for troubles at two grocers, Houston-based Randall's and Chicago-based Dominick's, that it bought for a total of $2.5 billion during the late 1990s. {snip} Besides sustaining...