It took a while, but production workers at Safeway Clackamas bakery have a new agreement with Bakers Local 114 that raises wages $4.50 an hour over its four-year term. The first year raise is retroactive to July 19, 2025, when the last contract expired.
The contract covers 49 members who produce house brand bread and buns sold in local Safeway stores. Talks slowed to a crawl for months as the company dug in its heels about whether to pay the increased health premium. Workers are enrolled in an employer-paid health insurance plan that is offered through a union-sponsored multi-employer health trust. The plan covers both employees and their families. But Safeway continued to pay only the old premium after the old contract expired, and the trust was about to cancel coverage when the two sides settled.
Members voted 86% to authorize a strike, and started putting up signs with slogans like “half-baked contract” in the break room and in their vehicles. In the end the two sides reached agreement without a strike, and it was ratified by members April 25.
