Tentative Deal Between Teamsters Local 202, Market Averts Strike At Hunts Point Market

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Workers and management at the nation's largest wholesale produce market in New York, Hunts Point Market, say they've reached a tentative agreement on a contract that averts a threatened walkout.

Teamsters Local 202 says its 1,300 members, who carry the final say, will vote on the offer Wednesday.

According to the union, the market's merchants raised their original wage offer.

"Our members stood strong and the market knew we were serious," Daniel Kane Jr., president of Teamsters Local 202, said in a statement. "We said we deserved a fair wage, we fought for it and we got it."

"The largest wage increase they've seen in some time, so not everything we wanted, but very close," Kane told WCBS 880's Jim Smith, adding it was a "hard-fought negation."

The tentative deal includes hourly raises between 50 and 60 cents in each of next three years and prevents most union workes from the $20 weekly healthcare contribution the market wanted, Smith reported.

Negotiations broke down this week when the union rejected proposed salary raises it says wasn't keeping up with the cost of living.

On Thursday the union had agreed to put off any strike action at the South Bronx facility until Sunday to let a federal mediator get involved. The original deadline was Friday.

Hunts Point supplies 60 percent of the produce in the New York metro area.

A walkout could have caused problems for local supermarkets and restaurants that rely on the massive marketplace to get their fresh fruits and vegetables, however the market said they had a contingency plan.

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