By Greg Paeth
Post staff reporter

The union chapter that represents nearly 11,000 grocery workers approved a new contract with the Kroger Co. Wednesday.

Officials of Local 1099 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said that 84 percent of members who voted did so in favor of the three-year deal. The local didn't disclose vote totals.

Union leaders had recommended ratification of the agreement.

Local 1099, which has its offices in Monroe, voted on the pact Wednesday during a series of five meetings that were held at each of five locations - 25 presentations in all - across the region.

"It was recommended by the executive officers and the bargaining committee. We haven't heard a lot of complaints, so that's good," local spokeswoman Brigid Kelly said Wednesday.

The agreement was reached late last Thursday, about 45 minutes before some 11,000 union members were poised to walk off the job at 79 Kroger stores in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

Cincinnati-based Kroger, the country's largest traditional grocery store chain, had threatened to hire replacement workers if the union members struck. That process of hiring temporary employees had started by the time the agreement was reached.

Kroger employees had not staged a strike against the company since 1971, when the Retail Clerks Union, predecessor of the United Food and Commercial Workers, stayed off the job for about three weeks.

In mid-July of this year, Kroger reached a deal with the United Food and Commercial Workers in Los Angeles that covered about 65,000 workers at 785 Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons stores in central and southern California. All of those chains are owned by Kroger, which had sales of more than $66 billion last year and turned a profit that topped $1 billion.

The settlement, reached after seven months of negotiations, allowed the company to avoid the long lockout that it experienced in 2003 and 2004, when the Kroger-owned stores - by some estimates - lost $2 billion in sales in California.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.