Violence Erupts in Market Strike

Scattered incidents of violence were reported Wednesday as the strike by 10,000 meat cutters and 12,000 Teamsters against Southern California supermarkets moved into its second day.

In one fracas, three Teamsters Union pickets were injured and four were arrested outside the gates of a Lucky Discount Supermarkets warehouse in Irvine shortly after 4 a.m. A union spokesman said a car, presumably driven by a non-union worker, ran through the picket line at the employees’ gate, throwing one picket onto the hood.

About 50 police officers, including reinforcements called in from neighboring communities, converged on the warehouse as a scuffle ensued. Officers arrested two pickets, who were booked on suspicion of obstructing a sidewalk, another for reportedly assaulting an officer and a fourth for allegedly being drunk in public. There were about 100 pickets at the warehouse.

The injured men, Patrick Evango of Anaheim; John McGrew, Buena Park, and Warren LaRoque, Chino, were taken by ambulance to Saddleback Community Hospital, where they were treated and released, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

“They were all treated basically for contusions--nothing serious, nothing broken,” the spokeswoman said.

Later in the morning, two other strikers were arrested at a Lucky’s warehouse in Buena Park after they allegedly kicked a car, smashed a truck windshield and assaulted an officer, police said.

Three people were also arrested after a fracas at the main Vons warehouse in El Monte. The arrests were made after Michael Mooneyham, 30, of El Monte drove his pickup truck through a line of demonstrators, according to police. A fight ensued between Mooneyham and two pickets, police said, and Mooneyham was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. The two pickets, Efrain Arroyo, 45, of Azusa and Celso Villalobos, 24, of El Monte face various charges, including battery, disturbing the peace and obstructing justice.

Wednesday evening, there were several reports of rocks thrown at Vons trucks by picketers, and two Vons truck drivers said they were accosted by strikers who beat them up and damaged their trucks a few blocks from the warehouse.

At the Safeway warehouse in Santa Fe Springs, sheriff’s deputies arrested picketers Perry Whetstine, 27, of Ontario and Michael Moffett, 37, of Norwalk on suspicion of misdemeanor vandalism, after they were accused of having smashed the window and scratched the paint of a non-striking worker’s car.

Later, at the same location, non-striking truck driver Steven Barton, 22, of Watsonville was arrested on suspicion of brandishing a deadly weapon--a pistol--at pickets who attempted to block him from the loading dock of the warehouse. Whetstine, Moffett and Barton were all later released.

David Willauer, a spokesman for the Food Employers Council, which represents the supermarkets in the labor dispute, said the organization was investigating all the incidents and may seek court injunctions to limit the number of pickets.

The number of pickets at the 164 Vons stores being struck increased. Striking meat cutters were augmented on picket lines by Teamsters, some retail clerks and, in one instance, sympathetic postal workers.

At the Vons on Pico Boulevard near Union Street in Central Los Angeles, pickets were joined by Oscar Gill, a union meat cutter, who had spent the early part of the day working his regular shift at a Boys market.

“We have to support the strike,” he said. “We’re all one with our brothers and sisters.”

Boys Markets on Tuesday signed an interim agreement with the unions, meaning that it will accept whatever contract is ultimately negotiated. Gerald McTeague, chief negotiator for the meat cutters, said members working at stores that have signed the interim agreements agreed to a monetary assessment to help provide financial support to the strikers.

So far, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents meat cutters and meat wrappers, and the Teamsters Union, which represents drivers, office workers and warehouse personnel, are limiting their picketing to Vons, even though eight other market chains are involved in the labor dispute.

On Tuesday, Albertson’s, Alpha Beta, Hughes, Lucky, Ralphs and Safeway locked out their meat cutters and Teamsters personnel in response to the strike against Vons. The chains are members of the Food Employers Council. Unions reported Wednesday that two other members of the council involved in the dispute, Stater Bros., which has 94 stores, and Foods Co., which has nine stores, had not locked out employees who belong to the striking unions.

Jerry Vercruse, chief negotiator for the Teamsters, and McTeague of the meat cutters said in separate interviews that their plan was to solidify picketing activities at Vons stores before moving on to another target.

Vercruse said Ralphs would be the next target of his union. McTeague declined to stay which store would be the next focus of picketing by his union.

The supply of meat in the supermarkets has decreased, according to a random survey by Times reporters.

Reports continued to be mixed on the degree of support being given to the strike by retail clerks, who are represented by the same international union as the meat cutters but who are operating under a contract that does not expire until 1987.

In the San Fernando Valley, there was no fresh chicken available at Vons stores in Sepulveda and Granada Hills, and meat supplies were down at both stores. Pat Shelton, manager of the Vons in Mission Hills, said food deliveries had been slowed because of the strike.

“We won’t have the quality or quantity of meats, because we’ve lost skilled personnel,” he said.

The meat shelves also were empty at the Vons market in the Bixby Knolls shopping center in Long Beach, as they had been on Tuesday. Meat supplies were dwindling at two Vons stores in Cerritos.

At several of the stores in the San Fernando Valley, as well as in other parts of Los Angeles, store managers said that almost all of their clerks had reported for work.

However, union officials said clerks’ support for the strike was growing, particularly in Lancaster and Palmdale, where they said two stores had been closed because of a clerks’ walkout. Vons officials declined to return telephone calls.

In San Diego County, 500 of 1,200 retail clerks stayed off the job on Tuesday, according to Tom Vandevelt, chief executive of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1222.

Dan Swinton, a spokesman for the union, estimated that 45% of Vons clerks throughout Southern California stayed away from work on Wednesday, but Willauer disputed that.

Management wants to cut the guaranteed workday of meat cutters from eight hours to four; introduce a new, lower-paid classification of worker called a “meat clerk,” who would perform some of the tasks now done by a meat cutter, and reduce the number of hours a day markets are required to have a journeyman meat cutter on duty.

The principal unresolved issues with the Teamsters involve management’s demand that it be allowed to impose a lower wage scale for new employees and be allowed to subcontract more work and move into new warehouses without automatically granting the union recognition at the new locations.

Times staff writers Thomas Omestad, Roberto Rodriguez and Nancy Skelton in Los Angeles County, Ray Perez and Steve Emmons in Orange County and Sebastian Dortch in San Diego County contributed to this story.