Strike at 1,125 Markets Likely as Talks Stall

Employees of 1,125 Southern California supermarkets were poised to go on strike after negotiations between their union leaders and representatives of the Food Employers Council broke down early Sunday.

The strike could begin this afternoon or at the latest Tuesday morning, according to officials of the United Food and Commercial Workers, who represent 10,000 unionized meat cutters at the stores, and the Teamsters Union, which negotiates for 12,000 unionized warehousemen, drivers and office workers at the markets.

This would be the first industrywide supermarket strike in this region since 1978, when there was a five-day walkout by the retail clerks. The last meat cutters’ strike was in 1973 and lasted five weeks.

Effect on Consumers

The strike could affect as many as 12 million consumers who shop at stores represented by the Food Employers Council in the negotiations. The chains involved in the dispute are Albertson’s, Alpha Beta, Boys, Foods Co., Hughes, Lucky, Pioneer, Ralphs, Safeway, Stater Bros. and Vons.

About 80% of the markets in Southern California would be involved in the work action, said Dan Swinton, a spokesman for the two unions. He said that three chains--Gelson’s, Mayfair and Big Bear--had signed interim contracts and would not be struck. The managements of those stores have signed what are known as “me too” agreements, meaning that they will accept whatever contract is ultimately negotiated between the unions and the Food Employers Council.

A spokesman for the supermarkets said the stores intend to keep operating, utilizing supervisory personnel and newly hired employees. The markets--located from the Mexican border on the south to Santa Barbara and Bakersfield to the north and the Nevada border on the east--have been advertising for new hires in anticipation of a strike.

The meat cutters could have started their strike at 12:01 a.m. today when their contract expired. But union leaders told their members to report to work today and wait for word on when the walkout would begin. The Teamsters have been working without a contract since theirs expired Sept. 8.

Leaders of the two unions said they would meet this morning and designate one of the chains as their initial strike target.

As soon as a strike begins, management would “lock out” the employees at the other 10 chains. “We consider a strike against one of us a strike against all of us,” said Bob Voigt, a spokesman for the Food Employers Council.

It was possible that talks could resume under the supervision of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, but neither side held out much hope for an early settlement. Spokesmen for labor and management said they were “far apart” on several major issues.

Support of Clerks

A key element in the success of a strike may be the extent to which the walkout is supported by the markets’ 60,000 retail clerks, who are represented by different locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Leaders of the clerks’ locals said they have offered their members financial incentives ranging from $100 a week to full salary if they observe the meat cutters’ picket lines. “The retail clerks will do everything in their power to support your struggle,” said Art Takei of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 at a meeting of a large meat cutters local Sunday morning.

At that meeting at the Wilshire Ebell Theater, members of Local 421 of the Food and Commercial Workers, which represents about 2,000 meat cutters in Los Angeles, voted 607 to 4 to strike. Other votes were being taken at other locations Sunday night.

Gerald McTeague, the local’s chief executive, strongly urged his members to reject the employers’ final offer.

He said the proposal contained 27 pages of “takeaways,” including management demands to create a new, lower-paid classification of meat cutter-clerk, to halve the guaranteed eight-hour work day, and to reduce the number of hours markets are required to have a journeyman meat cutter on duty.

‘Sacred’ Provision

Currently markets are required to have a journeyman meat cutter on duty from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. McTeague called that provision of the contract “sacred” and said job security would suffer if it were eliminated.

Voigt asserted that the provision constituted “featherbedding” and said the markets would be able to cut their operating costs by eliminating it.

McTeague said job security also would be hurt by two other demands that the union is vehemently opposing. “We can’t support our families working four-hour days,” McTeague said, referring to the proposal that would eliminate the eight-hour guarantee.

Voigt responded that the markets could improve their operating flexibility and better serve customers if they had the option of utilizing some workers only four hours a day at peak periods. He said the markets could not afford more staffing at peak periods unless they could cut down the number of people guaranteed eight-hour work days.

Lower Pay Scale

McTeague noted that a journeyman meat cutter currently makes $13.48 an hour. The new workers hired as meat cutter-clerks would make only $7 an hour, he said.

Voigt said management wanted the new category of worker “because there are some duties a journeyman doesn’t need to do, such as cutting a roast in half.”

But McTeague said creating the new category of worker would erode the job security of journeyman meat cutters. He said that as the new employees gradually took on more and more of the veterans’ duties, management would lay off the higher-paid workers in order to reduce costs and raise profits.

McTeague said the union also objected to management’s proposals on pensions, health and welfare costs and grievance and arbitration procedures. He said the markets proposed that the workers take a three-year wage freeze. He said management offered only lump sum bonus payments of $625 at the end of the second and third years of the contract.

Later in the morning, some of the members of Teamsters Local 630, representing 4,000 workers in Los Angeles County, voted 1,725 to 31 to reject the contract offer made to its union. That large local was scheduled to hold other voting meetings later in the day, as were several other Teamsters locals.

Swinton said Sunday night that strike-vote results from eight of 12 Teamsters Southern California locals were in, and that nearly 6,000 workers had voted by a 98% majority against the contract offer.

Apart on Issues

Jerry Vercruse, chief negotiator for the Teamsters, said his union also was far from agreement with management on numerous issues, and Voigt agreed.

Vercruse said the union objected particularly to management’s demands that it be able to impose a new, lower wage scale for newly hired employees, to subcontract work, to relocate plants without automatically recognizing the union at the new location, eliminate the contract’s cost-of-living increase clause, and freeze wages for current employees.

“I’ve never seen this kind of attitude from management in the 40 years I’ve been involved in these negotiations,” said Vercruse. He said management had attempted to provoke a strike, a charge Voigt denied.

Voigt said the markets needed the changes in the Teamster contract in order to remain competitive. He said three supermarket chains--Market Basket, Smith’s Food King and Thriftimart--had gone out of business since the last contract was negotiated in 1982.