Efforts by City Market and Safeway to reduce benefits or contributions to employees’ pensions were particularly irritating to two employees on Monday.

The women, one who works at Safeway and one at City Market, said they would vote to reject contract offers from their employers as employees gathered to cast ballots.

Officials with Kroeger and Safeway said the offers included wage increases and improved benefits.

“This is a good contract in a good economy,” said Diane Mulligan of Kroeger, which owns City Market. “It’s a great contract in this economy.”

A Safeway spokeswoman said the final offer to employees called for more employer contributions to the pension program administered by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7, but reduced benefits.

The offer would create three tiers of employees, said Christine Smith, deputy secretary of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 in Grand Junction, and a Safeway employee.

“They want to give no contribution” to new hires and offer them minimum wage, Smith said.

The Safeway offer includes pay raises, a shortened period before dependents can get health insurance coverage, and “a shared-responsibility funding approach to pensions,” said Kris Staaf, “that includes millions in increased employer contributions and some reductions in benefits.”

Kroeger’s offer includes $8,000 raises for employees who have topped out on their salary schedules, a move aimed at keeping long-term employees, and preventive health care, Mulligan said.

Part-time employees who stay with the company for a year will be able to cover their families for $60 a month, and Kroeger will put $40 million into the pension fund, Mulligan said.

The earliest an employee can retire will rise from 50 to 55, she said.

Safeway employees will vote to accept the contract or authorize a strike, though union officials said authorization wouldn’t necessarily mean employees would walk off the job immediately.

It could have consequences reaching beyond Safeway, though, because City Market could lock out its employees if the Safeway employees walk off the job.

Both chains have been advertising through the summer for temporary employees should the union employees strike.

The new contract will create different tiers of employees at City Market, as well, said Jill Young, who has worked with the company for 24 years.

She’s willing to go on strike “because I value fairness above all,” said Young, who wore a black blouse with bright, yellow lettering saying “Yes, We Can.”

The offer would reduce holidays for new employees, except for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Young said.

Those employees would receive time and half, and employees with more seniority would get what would amount to double time and a half for the same holiday hours, she said.

New employees would receive minimum wage and would top out at a lower hourly rate than current employees, she said.

Employees who hold out for a better contract eventually will boost the economy by keeping more money in the Grand Valley, circulating among other stores and restaurants, Smith said.