Column: California Inc.: SoCal grocery stores face strike vote

Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the L.A. Times Business section.

I’m Business columnist David Lazarus, and here’s a rundown of upcoming stories this week and the highlights of last week.

First, a quick reminder about fires -- be careful! The state is in its fourth year of drought, and officials say the wildfire that burned thousands of acres in Santa Barbara County is a grim omen for what could be a summer and fall of flames. So far this year, wildfires have burned more than 30,000 acres on state and federal land. Do us all a favor and don’t make it worse.

LOOKING AHEAD

Supermarket pay: Grocery workers will vote Monday on whether to authorize a strike against the Ralphs and Albertsons chains. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union is seeking its fourth contract with the two chains since an epic 141-day strike that brought the region’s supermarkets to their knees in 2003 and 2004. A strike would affect Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions and Safeway stores. The starting wage for a worker at the two chains currently is $10.10 an hour, just over the current state minimum.

Tronc time: Tribune Publishing, owner the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, will be renamed Tronc on Monday. At the same time, the company’s stock will move from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq and start trading under the ticker symbol TRNC. Tronc stands for “Tribune online content, ” a term for technology that executives have said will be crucial to the company’s turnaround strategy.

VW settlement: Volkswagen and attorneys for vehicle owners affected by the company’s emissions cheating scandal have until Tuesday to file a final settlement in U.S. District Court. A judge said last month that the parties have made substantial progress in reaching a deal to compensate owners of nearly half a million VWs nationwide with illegally rigged emission systems. A tentative agreement announced in May would give owners the option of having Volkswagen buy back or repair their vehicles.

“Brexit” vote: British citizens on Thursday face one of their most important decisions in a generation: Do they want to remain part of the 28-nation European Union, a partnership that began after World War II to generate economic cooperation and avoid war? Polls on what has become known as “Brexit” show the two sides -- “Leave” and “Remain” -- running neck and neck. If Britain votes to leave the EU, it will have to negotiate new trade deals with other countries.

Focus on video: The annual confab of digital stars, fans and advertisers known as Vidcon is set to kick off Thursday at the Anaheim Convention Center, with Facebook playing a prominent role. Facebook plans its biggest presence yet at the three-day event as the social network ramps up competition with YouTube, the Web’s leading video site. Facebook will get to hear firsthand from top YouTubers, Viners and Snapchaters, among others, about what they want from a video platform.

THE AGENDA

Monday’s Business section steers into the knotty problem of insuring driverless vehicles. The number of accidents is expected to drop sharply because more than 90% of accidents now are caused by driver error. That could lower insurance bills for consumers, and the U.S. market for personal auto-insurance policies -- which currently generates $200 billion a year in premiums -- could shrink substantially, some experts predict. But the insurance industry, regulators and consumer advocates caution that many questions still have to be answered. For instance, while a driverless car might cut the risk of accidents, it still would share the road with drivers behind the wheel. How would insurance for both types of vehicles be written and what would it cost?

STORYLINES

Here are some of the other stories that ran in the Times Business section in recent days and that we’re continuing to follow:

Small world: Under dark skies and intermittent showers, Walt Disney Co. officially threw wide the gates of its most expensive international resort to mostly orderly crowds, creating a beachhead for the popular entertainment company in the world’s most populous nation. During a colorful opening ceremony attended by Chinese dignitaries, Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Iger called the opening of the nearly 1,000-acre, $5.5-billion Shanghai Disney Resort “one of the proudest and most exciting moments in the history of the Walt Disney Company.” Iger also read a letter from President Obama, who said the park “captures the promise” of the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China.

Grid bid: In the name of clean energy, Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed resurrecting a plan from nearly two decades ago to expand California’s electricity grid — a strategy that was part of efforts to deregulate the state’s utility industry. Calls to curb pollution and thwart climate change have breathed new life into a concept that was part of Senate Bill 96, which was passed in 1999 and sought to tie California’s electric grid more closely to its neighbors in the West. Critics of the idea say “it has nothing to do with renewables.”

Good Karma: A premium luxury sedan born from the ashes of the Fisker Karma -- a Tesla rival that wowed the automotive world before collapsing into bankruptcy three years ago -- will soon begin rolling off a production line at California’s newest car factory. When it is up and running, the Karma Automotive factory in Moreno Valley will produce as many as 3,000 high-end Karma Reveros annually. The cars, again competing with Tesla, will be four-door luxury electric sedans priced above $100,000. Karma Automotive joins Tesla on a list of locally based car and bus manufacturers -- including Faraday Future, BYD and Atieva – that together are making California ground zero for the electric vehicle market.

Coding for dollars: Nearly a million Californians work in fields that produce software or support it, according to an industry study. That’s about 6% of total state jobs, and about a tenth of all Americans with jobs tied to the industry. California has benefited more than any other state from the software explosion, the Software Alliance report said. The industry and its attendant fields contributed more than a quarter of total business research and development investment in California. The 949,000 software and support jobs here also are high-paying. Software publishers in California earned more than $206,000 per year on average last year. Computer systems designers made $140,550 on average.

Our house: Canadian developer Onni Group has entered into a preliminary agreement to buy the landmark Los Angeles Times building near City Hall with an eye toward redeveloping the property into modern offices and retail venues, according to a person familiar with the deal. The acquisition of Times Mirror Square would be a significant gain for the Vancouver-based company, which has been on an acquisition spree in downtown Los Angeles, where it owns at least eight properties -- including offices, apartments and an extended-stay hotel. Tribune Media announced the sales agreement in a news release but did not disclose the buyer or the price. A downtown real estate expert valued the approximately 750,000-square-foot complex at more than $100 million.

WHAT WE’RE READING

And some recent stories from other publications that caught our eye:

Real fake: China’s online powerhouse Alibaba has a problem. Bloomberg quotes the company’s CEO, Jack Ma, as saying that “the problem is that the fake products today, they make better quality, better prices than the real products, the real names.”

Going deep: Apple laid out a lot of changes last week. As Fast Company sees it, the company is “focused more on embedding apps deeper into the fabric of the core experiences that make up its emerging uberplatform.”

Thar she blows: In case you were wondering why the Harvard Business School teaches students about old-time whaling, Quartz has the answer. It’s because when you study how multiple ships were involved in killing a whale, this “has direct bearing on the online advertising industry, where it’s often hard to know which ad to credit when consumers make a purchase.”

Sour taste: Think operating a food cart makes you your own boss? Think again, says Crain’s. “Today’s mobile food vending business is one of day laborers and shift workers who, despite hustling all week long, may not earn minimum wage.”

Increased leverage: Talk about market consolidation. According to the Guardian, “prosecutors in the Sicilian capital of Palermo are warning that an alliance between the mafia and Nigerian criminal gangs moving in from Libya could herald a new era of organized crime.”

SPARE CHANGE

Because some of us in the Business section enjoy a healthy and by-no-means-time-wasting obsession with “The Godfather,” we’ve been debating who in the movie says the “sleeps with the fishes” line, Tessio or Clemenza? The script says it’s Clemenza. IMDb and Wikiquote say it’s Tessio. In the book, it was Tom Hagen who said, “The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean.” You be the judge.

For the latest money news, go to www.latimes.com/business. Until next time, I’ll see you in the Business section.

David Lazarus’ column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.