LONGMONT — Unionized King Soopers and Safeway workers in Longmont are weighing in this week on the two company’s most recent five-year contract offers.

King Soopers’ unionized workers in Longmont, who voted Thursday, are deciding whether to accept or reject the company’s most recent offer, made Sept. 9. That was the last day of face-to-face negotiations between the company and United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7.

Longmont Safeway workers, who have already voted to reject their company’s last offer, are voting today on whether to authorize a strike.

Unionized workers at both companies have been working without a contract since Sept. 12.

“We do have strike sanction from the international, which is key,” said Laura Chapin, a spokeswoman for UFCW Local 7.

Labor talks between the companies and the union have dragged on for months. Unionized workers have been voting in communities across Colorado for the past couple weeks. Thursday marked the final day of voting for King Soopers workers, while Safeway workers in two more communities will be voting in the next few days.

In Longmont, 68 meat, seafood and deli department workers are members of Local 7 at the three King Soopers stores.

At the city’s three Safeway stores, 190 workers are unionized. In addition to meat and deli workers, checkers and all general merchandise workers are members of Local 7.

Chapin said she’s heard from other communities that King Soopers workers are voting overwhelmingly to reject the company’s latest offer.

The union is not satisfied with the companies’ proposals for wages and health and pension benefits.

Theresa Montez, a King Soopers deli worker, said Thursday that she voted to reject the company’s offer, as did Sean Glennen, a meat cutter who’s worked for King Soopers for 20 years. He said he had a problem with proposed changes to pension benefits.

Diane Mulligan, a spokeswoman for King Soopers, said the company’s pension proposals are fair.

If Safeway workers do call for a strike, it would would have an effect on King Soopers workers, because the two companies have agreed that if workers at one strike, the other would lock out its unionized workers.

The normally competitive grocery chains believe they’re facing unity within Local 7, so they want to present a unified front to the union, Mulligan said.

“If there was a strike and a lockout, hopefully it would force both parties back to the table sooner,” she said.

Safeway spokeswoman Kris Staaf said her company hasn’t decided what it will do if its workers vote to strike, but she said she’s hoping to see the situation resolved without workers walking off the job.

“It’s the final offer, and we presented it back on Sept. 19 after five months of negotiations and 17 sessions,” Staaf said.

Chapin said the union, too, hopes to avoid a walkout, but its workers will do what they feel they have to do.

“We hope it’s not necessary,” she said. “We hope the corporations look at the votes and say, ‘OK, we need to come back with a better offer.’”

Chapin said she wasn’t sure when the workers’ votes would be counted.