By David Goetz
Louisville Courier-Journal

Workers at most Kroger stores in Kentucky and Southern Indiana agreed to a new contract Tuesday night, but five stores in rural Kentucky rejected it.

Under the contract, some workers could pay some of their own health-insurance premiums for the first time beginning in 2007.

Members of UFCW Local 227 voted by a four-to-one margin to ratify a four-year deal with 79 stores in the Cincinnati-based grocer's Louisville division.

The health insurance plan will remain the same for the next two-plus years. But in 2007 workers will choose between a plan that requires them to pay a weekly premium or a no-premium option with reduced benefits, including higher deductibles and reduced sick leave.

The new premiums will be $5 a week for individuals, $10 for a worker and spouse or worker and children, and $15 a week for both spouse and children. The co-payment for a doctor's visit will rise to $25 from $20.

"It was a good agreement,'' said Local 227 President Gary K. Best. "We always want more, but with what's going on in this country in health care we came out better than most.''

The contract also calls for an 8 percent pay raise over three years and what Best called "major improvements'' in language covering seniority and store transfer rights.

Top pay for department heads will reach $17.50 an hour at the end of the contract. Full-time workers will top out at $12.55 an hour and part-timers at $9.75. Workers with seniority will be able to bid on higher-paying jobs or in stores closer to home.

"We maintained pensions with no reduction, which has been a big issue," Best said.

A spokesman for Kroger in Louisville called the contract fair but deferred other comment to corporate offices in Cincinnati. A representative there did not return a call.

The contract rejected by workers in stores in Brandenburg, Russell Springs, Monticello, Stanton and Whitley City was the same, Best said, and called for those stores to merge with the Louisville master contract. Best said he didn't know why they rejected it.

Workers in three Paducah-area stores approved a similar contract Saturday.

It has been 26 years since Louisville-area Kroger employees walked a picket line, but veteran workers were wondering last winter if they'd be called to strike when their contract ran out in April. Kroger had made it clear it intended to limit what it spends on health insurance.

The issue was at the center of a more than four-month strike and lockout in California that involved the Kroger-owned Ralphs chain, and in a strike against 44 Kroger stores by the UFCW's Charleston local that included stores in West Virginia, Ohio and Eastern Kentucky.

Kroger said the two strikes cost it $246 million in profits.

Health insurance was the main issue in talks between Kroger and the union in Indianapolis.