Profits are climbing for the nation’s top three supermarket operators, three years after the chains wrestled key wage and benefit concessions from Southern California workers during a strike and lockout, the Associated Press reports in the Pasadena Star-News.

Kroger Co., which operates the Ralphs chain, saw earnings jump 16 percent to $1.11 billion in 2006. Safeway Inc. posted its biggest numbers since 2001, earning $870.6 million last year.

Even Supervalu Inc., which acquired much of the troubled Albertsons chain, collected $332 million in profits in the nine months ended Dec. 2.

Analysts said that financial muscle is translating to a hard line in current talks in which the union wants the chains to scrap a two-tiered system implemented in 2004 that pays new hires less and requires them to wait at least a year for health benefits.

Mark Husson, an analyst with HSBC Securities, said the chains aren’t likely to roll back the system.

Negotiations are scheduled to resume Monday after breaking off last week. The previous contract expired on March 5 but it remains in place unless either side stops negotiating. A strike or lockout could follow 72 hours later.

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“They can’t afford to,” Husson said. “One of the reasons the sales have gone up is because they’ve taken some of the cost reductions that they had achieved in the strike and they’ve invested in lower prices.”