San Luis Obispo, CA -- Union officials will take the results of a weekend vote to a federal mediator later today, after union members resoundingly rejected health care proposals from major supermarket chains. More than 90 percent of voters from the Southern California local of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which has about 62,000 members, voted against the health proposal from Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons stores and automatically authorized union officials to call a strike after 72 hours.

Union members have been working without a contract since March. Both sides announced last month that they had reached a tentative agreement on the employers' contributions to pension benefits, but payments to the union health care trust fund have been a major sticking point.