By Doug Cunningham

The United Food and Commercial Workers union says its membership in California could begin voting as soon as Sunday on whether to authorize a strike against two southern California grocery chains. A strike has already been authorized if needed at a third chain. Very little progress has been made in contract talks. Roughly 65,000 UFCW workers are employed at Ralph’s, Von’s and Albertson’s. How to utilize a jointly held union-company health care fund to cover increasing health care costs and wages for new hires are among the unresolved issues. A lockout and strike that lasted 141 days happened three and a half years ago when negotiations broke down.