Supermarket Walkout Begins as Talks Break Down

Union meat cutters, drivers and warehouse personnel went on strike at 12:01 a.m. today against the Vons supermarket chain in Southern California, and management spokesmen said other market chains would lock out members of the striking unions.

The strike came after a day of negotiations between the Food Employers Council, representing the markets, and the Teamsters Union and United Food and Commercial Workers unions, aimed at avoiding the job action which could idle as many as 22,000 people.

And there had been a few hopeful signs:

By late Monday evening, Frank Allen of the federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, who had been supervising negotiations, said “substantial progress” was being made, and discussed the possibility that the strike deadline might be postponed to allow the talks to continue.

But at 11 p.m., negotiations at the Breakers Hotel in Long Beach were suspended, and union officials spread the word that the strike would begin in one hour. Jerry Vercruse, chief negotiator for the Teamsters, said the union had offered binding arbitration of its final offer, but management refused.

“The issues that caused the strike,” he said, “were ‘takeaway’ demands by management that threatened job security of our members.”

David Willaur, a spokesman for the Food Employers, accused the Teamsters of being “unwilling to confront the issues facing this industry.”

Allen said he will try to bring the parties back together, but no further negotiations were scheduled.

Earlier Monday, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union had selected Vons, with 162 stores across Southern California, as its initial strike target.

The 10 other major supermarket chains involved in negotiations planned to immediately lock out meat cutters and Teamsters Union members, widening the walkout. Supermarket officials have vowed to stay open and continue to operate with non-union personnel in the event of a strike.

Much of the success of a strike would hinge on the extent to which 60,000 retail supermarket clerks, who are represented by the same international union as the meat cutters but are not involved in the negotiations, honor picket lines.

Monday’s late bargaining session brought negotiators for the Teamsters Union, which represents 12,000 grocery store truck drivers, warehousemen and office workers, to the bargaining table with the Food Employers Council.

“We would not finish our contract unless the meat cutters are able to conclude theirs,” said Vercruse, reflecting the two unions’ intention to coordinate bargaining and strike plans.

Ballots tabulated from strike votes taken around the Southland indicated that, of those voting from the locals’ combined 22,000 membership, 98.5% supported a strike.

The chains involved are Albertson’s, Alpha Beta, Boys, Foods Co., Hughes, Lucky, Pioneer, Ralphs, Safeway, Stater Bros. and Vons. They represent about 80% of the supermarkets in Southern California, and a strike could affect as many as 12 million consumers.

Certified Grocers and Jerseymaid Dairy, whose warehouses employ Teamsters workers, are also represented in the negotiations by the Food Employers Council.

Three chains--Gelson’s, Mayfair and Big Bear--have signed interim contracts and are not targeted for a strike.

There was no indication why Vons was selected by the two unions. The chain, with stores in California and Nevada, has been in a neck-and-neck race this year with Ralphs for the highest market share in Southern California. Late last month, it was announced that Vons will be sold to a group of investors including Roger E. Stangeland, Vons’ current chairman and chief executive.

“We don’t know why we were singled out as the target market,” Vons said in a written statement. “Vons expects to continue normal operations at our markets. There will be no change in store hours or the service offered.”

In Boise, Ida., Jerry Rudd, Albertson’s senior vice president of human resources, said the firm’s 81 Southern California stores are “not going to be out of business. All stores will be fully supplied” and “all departments will be fully staffed.”

Hughes Markets President Fred McLaren, whose company operates 42 stores, agreed. “We’re prepared to replace anyone who doesn’t cross the (picket) line (including clerks), and also prepared to run the warehouse and trucking.”

He said he expects no supply problems and has not seen consumers doing “the advance buying that we’ve had in the past” when a strike was possible. “Customers are taking it kind of like we are--not panicky.”

Doug Proffitt, vice president of Pioneer Markets, which has three stores and is the smallest of the chains, said “we definitely will be able” to supply customers. But he said Pioneer had not yet arranged alternative transport for food in the event of a strike.

Several other chains, however, including Ralphs and Safeway, said they had hired non-union drivers. Targeted stores also have been advertising for replacements for the meat cutters in recent weeks, and arranging for non-union trucking to transport food to the markets.

Predictions differed as to whether retail clerks would honor picket lines.

Clerks’ representative Art Takei of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 said he believes that a high percentage of clerks would stay off the job. Leaders of some clerks’ locals have offered incentive pay from $100 a week to full salary to clerks who do.

But Bob Voigt, a negotiator for the employers, said market managers “tell us that they expect a large majority of the clerks to continue to work. They need the money. There are holidays coming up.”

The major obstacle in Teamster talks, Vercruse said, is “the job security we’ve had for so many years they’re trying to take away.”

Teamsters object to management proposals for a wage freeze, a lower wage scale for new employees, subcontracting work and elimination of a current cost-of-living increase, Vercruse said.

At issue for meat cutters are proposals to freeze wages for three years, to create a new lower-paid meat cutter-clerk job classification, to cut a current guaranteed eight-hour workday in half, and to reduce the number of hours markets are required to have a journeyman meat cutter on the job.