Union Plans Boycott of Ralphs Stores : Will Spend $1 Million to Pressure Company
A union representing thousands of Ralphs Grocery Co. employees is spending $1 million to urge shoppers to boycott the supermarket chain until it changes labor practices that have been the center of a bitter dispute for months, union leaders disclosed.
“We unequivocally are starting a boycott,” said Ricardo Icaza, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 770, based in Hollywood. Eight locals from San Diego to Santa Barbara will participate in the campaign, whose cost will be “in the seven-figure range,” he said.
Icaza said the boycott will be a “three-pronged attack,” using direct mail to potential Ralphs shoppers, store picketing and a “corporate campaign” focused on Ralphs’ parent company, Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores.
Consumers Targeted
He said that letters to consumers will start going out about 10 days after studies have identified the target groups for the mailings. Icaza said the campaign will be handled by Ross Communications & Management of Sacramento, the firm that conducted a direct-mail campaign for the United Farm Workers when that union was attempting to persuade consumers not to buy non-union grapes at Lucky Stores.
The Food & Commercial Workers have been hinting for months that they would launch a full-scale boycott of Ralphs. In San Diego, one local has already spent $50,000 urging shoppers not to patronize Ralphs stores in that area. And pickets at selected stores in other parts of Southern California have carried signs in recent weeks urging shoppers to stay way.
The union disclosed the start of the costly effort as its lawyers and Ralphs’ attorneys began a lengthy arbitration hearing on the company employment practices that led to the boycott.
Six days of hearing have been scheduled over the next two months and more may be required. Neither side expects a decision before January.
The dispute erupted in June when union officials said that Ralphs, one of the largest retail food chains in Southern California, had laid off or demoted 1,800 workers in the previous 16 months in violation of its contract. The union accused the company of replacing veteran employees with younger, less experienced workers who earn lower salaries. The salary difference for cashiers, one of the affected job categories, averages $4 an hour, union officials said.
Ralphs contends that it laid off only 173 workers, although company officials acknowledge that many others have been shifted to lower-paying positions. The company maintains that its conduct is legal under its labor contracts and was required to cut costs to remain competitive.
“We have 100 to 150 people who remain on layoff,” said Gene Brown, a Ralphs spokesman. Brown maintained that union estimates of the number of people laid off or demoted are greatly exaggerated.
Changing of Jobs
But union lawyer Michael Feinberg contended that the company is attempting to gradually eliminate full-time food clerks, who make about $11.80 an hour, and replace them with lower-paid personnel known as “general merchandise clerks.”
In a brief prepared for the arbitration, Feinberg said that under its contract Ralphs is entitled to replace or reduce the hours of food clerks only when required to do so by legitimate business conditions, such as a decline in sales.
Feinberg’s brief asserts that those conditions do not exist because Ralphs sales have increased. Ralphs reported $1.7 billion in sales for the 1984 fiscal year ended Feb. 2, up from $1.5 billion in 1983, but the company said its profits declined to $43.9 million from $50 million. Ralphs does not make public quarterly reports, so there are no 1985 figures.
An attorney for Ralphs, Thomas Kerrigan, said the chain was acting in accordance with its labor agreements. He said the company had first won the right to use general merchandise clerks in 1964 and is doing nothing illegal.
Denial by Company
Icaza charged that Ralphs has aggravated the dispute in recent weeks by assigning general merchandise clerks to handle fresh fruits and vegetables, work that previously had been done exclusively by journeyman food clerks. Brown denied that Ralphs has made any major change in the way it handles such produce.
Daniel J. B. Mitchell, director of UCLA’s Institute of Industrial Relations, said it is “extremely unusual” for a union to launch a boycott of a store where it has a contract. Icaza acknowledged this, but said the union was prompted to take such strong action because of the gravity of the situation.
He said the union hopes to affect Ralphs financially and force the company to a settlement without having to await results of the arbitration.
