Safeway Stores, Pleasanton, CA, will seek a buyer for its 113 Dominick’s stores in Chicago after settling a contentious labor dispute last week. Nine thousand union workers were poised to strike if contract negotiations failed; Safeway threatened to close stores if there was a strike. In the end, the two sides agreed to extend existing terms until July, while Safeway seeks a buyer for the chain, reports “The Chicago Tribune.”
Safeway bought Dominick’s in 1998, the same year Albertson’s bought Chicago’s other big supermarket chain, Jewel Foods. Safeway’s efforts at efficiencies of scale-replacing Dominick’s specialty items with Safeway private-label, and eliminating costly Dominick’s Fresh stores-alienated some customers and longtime workers used to the generosity of Dominick’s founding family.
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