SAN DIEGO -- The supermarket strike and lockout -- in its ninth week -- continued Monday with no end in sight, union officials and grocery chain operators said.

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Union Plans Strike Strategy

Negotiations broke off Sunday night between the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents the grocery clerks, and the big three grocery chains, without a settlement and with no new talks scheduled, according to separate statements issued by the union and the companies.

Representatives of the UFCW and Safeway-owned Vons and Pavilions and Ralphs and Albertsons supermarkets talked for six days, but "the parties remain far apart on all the key issues involved in the dispute, including maintaining affordable health care for working families," according to the union's statement.

Under a news blackout requested by federal mediator Peter Hurtgen, both sides have agreed not to comment on the negotiations, but both sides issued statements defending their positions in the labor dispute.

According to a joint statement from Albertsons, Ralphs and Safeway, the grocery companies presented a "revised comprehensive offer" to the union last Tuesday, but have not received a counter offer from the union.

"From the beginning of the negotiation process, the companies' proposals have ensured that employees would remain among the highest paid retail employees in Southern California," according to the statement. "We are all aware that the enormous escalation in health care costs has become an issue in virtually every home and workplace. To deal with this health care cost crisis, the companies have proposed changes in the health care program.

"The companies are no longer willing to absorb all costs related to maintaining health care benefits," the statement continued. "Nonetheless, the companies have proposed only that current employees participate in a modest level of cost sharing -- $5 a week for individual current employees and $15 a week for current employees and their families. The companies would continue to pay for the vast majority of the health care costs."

The statement added that the offer from the supermarket chains increases hourly pension contributions for current employees in each of the three years of the contract, and that "current employees would continue to enjoy one of the most generous pension benefits in the nation under the companies' proposal."

But as the strike and lockout entered its ninth week, UFCW International President Doug Dority announced that he is calling leaders of the major UFCW local unions from throughout the United States and Canada to a "summit" in Southern California to "mobilize the forces of the 1.4-million member union."

Union officials and line captains met Monday at the local UFCW headquarters in Mission Valley to develop another strategy before going back on the picket lines.

"I don't think the employees ever imagined that they would have made the sacrifice they've made. Sure, our members are out there making a sacrifice and we understand that. But, they understand that it's not about a 25-cent-an-hour raise, it's not about $5, it's about their health, their welfare and their pensions. It's about their careers and they understand that and they're willing to stay out as long as it takes," UFCW Local 135 President Mickey Kasparian said.

The strike and lockout involves some 70,000 unionized workers in Southern and Central California.