The union representing some 60,000 grocery workers across Southern California will amplify its living-wage message to shoppers in the coming weeks, following three more days of unproductive contract negotiations.

The latest negotiations with executives from Ralphs, Vons, Albertsons and Pavilions concluded Wednesday, Aug. 14, and the United Food and Commercial Workers, in a message on the websites of its seven locals, said that the stores want to “only offer a nickel a year.”

In the coming weeks, customers at many of the more than 500 stores affected by the contract talks can expect to see employees outside reminding them, with leaflets and picket signs, of the connection the workers have with the communities and the way the companies are treating them.

“We’re going to mobilize now. We’re going to start talking directly to the consumer,” said Joe Duffle, president of Local 1167, which represents Inland Empire workers. “We’ve had over 30 sessions, and all these stores are doing is kicking nickels around.”

Duffle said UFCW offered comprehensive proposals on wages and health care, but the supermarket chain’s representatives did not counter with significant replies. He added that he was ready “to get the picket signs out of the garage.”

“We’re ready to up the ante,” he said.

In a statement posted on the company website, Ralphs said it has offered “top-rate” pay boosts, no benefit changes to health care, and a plan that keeps pensions secure. In a separate statement, Ralphs’ spokesman John Votava said UFCW’s comments “minimizes the progress” that has been made.

“It doesn’t take into account the total compensation offer that pays for world-class health care and funds retirement plans, on top of hourly wage increases,” Votava wrote in an email.

The union had been criticizing the stores’ negotiation tactics, saying that they were offering most workers a 1% salary increase.

Greg Conger, president of Orange County’s Local 324, said general merchandise clerks, the workers who stock store shelves, were offered 25-cent hourly increases, which comes to 1% raises, and this week the supermarkets upped that to 30 cents.

“There’s not a single person in America that believes that an extra nickel an hour is going to make a difference to anyone in Southern California,” Conger said.

The base hourly pay for these clerks is slightly more than $15 per hour, he said.

Representatives of Vons, Albertsons and Pavilions did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Local 1167 held a rally outside a San Bernardino Ralphs location Thursday, and demonstrations in Apple Valley, La Quinta and Riverside, are scheduled for the next two weeks. Rallies were also held outside stores in Valencia and Woodland Hills, and Los Angeles-based Local 770 will be in Grover Beach Friday.

Starting next week, members of the Orange County local plans a wave of demonstrations that will include pickets at all 49 stores in its jurisdiction, said Greg Conger, the local’s president.

Other locals plan to announce protest sites in the next few days.

Conger said the next round of talks will start next Thursday, Aug. 22, and run for four days through the weekend.

The union has been working under the terms of the contract that expired March 3, and they have mostly been meeting on alternate weeks. A federal mediator has been assisting the talks since early June, and holding meetings in consecutive weeks is an acceleration of the pace. In June, UFCW members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if negotiations break down.

“If we have to go back to our members again with the offers we’re hearing now, it isn’t going to be pretty,” Conger said.

Almost 16 years ago a strike and lockout lasted almost five months and ended up costing the chains billions in lost sales. In that cycle, the strike began only six weeks after negotiations began.

This time, the two sides have been talking for almost six months, and sources with experience in these situations say it signals that neither wants another strike. Retail analyst Burt Flickinger III said recently he expects them to continue talking at least until the end of September.