Grocery workers in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky will vote Thursday, Dec. 11, on whether to end their two-month strike against retail giant Kroger Co., The Associated Press reported.

Just as in other, similar strikes in other parts of the country, the labor action centered on health benefits, and both sides came together with the help of a federal mediator, the news service said. The two sides reached a tentative agreement Tuesday, but the pact must be approved by the 3,300 union members involved.

The strike involved one of the companies, Kroger (parent company of California grocer Ralph’s), and the same union, United Food and Commercial Workers, as a massive grocery strike in Southern California. Those similarities, according to a report in The Long Beach Press Telegram, led experts to say the settlement in the eastern strike offered some hope that the western strike might be settled on similar terms.

The series of labor disputes started when roughly 70,000 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union went on strike Oct. 21 against more than 800 Southern California stores operated by Vons, Ralph's, Pavilions and Albertsons. Those stores make up roughly 60 percent of all groceries in the southern half of the state.

Grocery workers in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky went on strike soon after.

While those strikes were under way, labor disputes started to flare up in other parts of the nation. Federal mediators were able to either end or avoid strikes in several locations.

In St. Louis, a strike by more than 10,000 strikers against roughly 90 stores operated under the Schnuck's, Dierberg's and Shop & Save was ended after intervention by a federal mediator. That labor action started when workers took action against one chain, and retail operators responded by locking union workers out of two others.

A strike was averted in Arizona, The Arizona Republic reported, when members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 99 in Arizona indefinitely extended their contract with Safeway and Fry's Food Stores. That agreement involved 14,000 workers.

Federal mediators also had a victory in Indiana, although that situation, which involves more than 4,000 workers at Kroger stores, is not fully resolved. The AP said a federal mediator had secured an indefinite extension of the deadline to reach an agreement, allowing negotiations to continue. But while those negotiations – which like others center on health care – are under way, those employees have worked without a new contract for nearly a month.

Meanwhile, while other labor actions are winding down, the Southern California strike continues full steam.

The strike took a new turn in late November, when striking clerks started picketing distribution centers operated by the grocery chains that are under strike. Officials of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters told The Los Angeles Times the union’s members would not cross those picket lines. Teamsters not only drive some of the trucks supplying the distribution centers, they also work in the centers.