Local grocery store workers expressed relief Monday after Sunday's union vote to approve a new contract with Ralphs, Albertsons and Vons supermarket chains, averting a repeat of the costly strike and lockout of 2003-04.

"I went through the first strike - I'm so happy we're not going to have to deal with that again," said Nicholas Vieaux, a delicatessen counter employer at the Vons supermarket at Felicita Avenue and Centre City Parkway.

He was referring to the 2003-04 strike and lockout that left tens of thousands of grocery workers out of work for nearly four months across Southern California.

The new contract ends the two-tier wage agreement that has been in place since 2004 - a wage system that saw new employees receive less than workers who had been working with the company for several years. The new contract also spells slightly higher wages for employees of the three companies. For example, over the next four years of the contract, some employees will receive a minimum of a $1.65-an-hour pay raise. It also shortens the waiting times before health care benefits kick in.

David Lindsley, 52, who also works at the Vons on Felicita, said that he has worked for Vons and Safeway for the last 34 years and that he "was so glad it was over. I always say, it's like a game of poker and we're the chips."

Union spokeswoman Sandra Lloyd-Jones said Thursday that under the old contract, some employees were waiting for 12 to 18 months before they were eligible for health benefits and their children and spouses were waiting for as long as 30 months. The new contract reduces wait time to six months for new hires and their children, and 24 months for spouses.

A wage increase, health benefits and ending the two-tier system were the main goals for the union, Lloyd-Jones said. "Those were the three things we made clear we wanted from the beginning," she said.

More than 87 percent of the workers who voted came out in favor of the four-year deal, Lloyd-Jones said.

For workers, the deal is an improvement over the last contract, said Daniel J.B. Mitchell, professor of management and public policy at UCLA.

"They made gains they didn't have under their old contract, so in that sense, the union got something," Mitchell said. "But the management side got some things out of it, too."

Mitchell said he doesn't see the Southern California contract setting a precedent for the upcoming talks in Northern California. Rather, he sees it as the latest in a series of labor deals in which employers have taken back the two-tiered approach and emphasized better health care benefits.