Supermarket News.

King Kullen calls union demands "Unrealistic"

Workers at seven Long Island King Kullen stores walked off the job Sunday in four-hour shifts before returning to work as negotiations stalled between the supermarket chain's management and union leaders.

One hundred workers who make Bakers Pride ovens, broilers and ranges are on strike in their quest for a new contract to replace one that was due to expire two months ago. The workers, members of Local 888 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, want 4 percent raises, said Eric Cunningham, a union representative who led about 30 workers yesterday on a picket line in front of the company's sprawling brick building on Pine Street. The company has offered raises of 2.5 percent, he said.

Supermarket News covered the UFCW endorsement of Obama.

Workers in the meat and seafood departments of six King Kullen supermarkets on Staten Island will walk off the job Sunday night unless a contract deal is reached between their union and the chain's management. A union representative said today that negotiations between United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 342 and King Kullen Grocery Inc. are not going well and a strike is "pretty likely" at all 51 King Kullen stores on Staten Island, Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island.

About 17,000 home-based child care providers will join the Civil Service Employees Association as a result of a lopsided pro-union vote, state officials said Friday.Officials with the State Employment Relations Board said that 3,723 child care providers had voted to unionize, while 161 had voted against. National union leaders applauded the move. “Today, 17,000 day care workers in New York added their voice to the national cry for change,” said John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “They said the best way for working families to bring change is to form unions.”