Roughly 31,000 employees of the grocery store chain Stop & Shop launched the largest private-sector strike in the U.S. in years, walking off the job at 240 stores across New England on Thursday. Leaders at the United Food and Commercial Workers union declared the strike after months of negotiations with the company failed to produce a new contract. The union says that Stop & Shop, which is owned by the Belgium-based company Ahold Delhaize, has tried to increase employees’ health care costs and also cut pension benefits for new hires. Union leaders called upon employees to empty Stop & Shop stores at 1 p.m. Thursday and form picket lines. “This would make our company less competitive in the mostly non-union New England food retail marketplace.”The strike affects Stop & Shop stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Source: Huffington Post April 11, 2019 19:38 UTC