Supermarket Strike Sparks Some Violence

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 Supermarket warehouse in Irvine. A union spokesman said a car, presumably driven by a non-union worker, ran through the picket line at the employees’ gate shortly after 4 a.m., throwing one picket onto the hood.

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

Injured Men Treated

The injured men--Patrick Evango of Anaheim, John McGrew of Buena Park and Warren LaRoque of Chino--were taken by ambulance to Saddleback Community Hospital in Laguna Hills where they were treated and released, a hospital spokeswoman said. “They were all treated basically for contusions--nothing serious, nothing broken,” she said.

Union officials complained that police at the Irvine warehouse were ignoring such attacks on the picketers. “Guys are coming at us at 20 to 30 miles an hour while we’re trying to keep a lawful picket line,” said Jerry Flanagan of the Orange County Teamsters local. “The cops are sitting there . . . . They say they’re taking a neutral position.”

Irvine Police Lt. A.W. Muir said officers were on duty at the gate at the time. He said it appeared the cars were not traveling fast when they hit the picketers.

“Also, we were told that at least one of the injured jumped in front of the car,” Muir said. “However, that does not mean there was a reluctance on our part to help.”

He said officers did not chase the drivers into the parking lots, possibly because of a misunderstanding about orders not to leave their posts at the gate. He said the drivers would be sought and asked their versions of the confrontations.

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

And three people were arrested after a prolonged 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, police said. A fight ensued between Mooneyham and two pickets. Mooneyham was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. The two pickets, Efrain Arroyo, 45, of Azusa, and Celso Villalobos, 24, of El Monte, face a variety of charges including battery, disturbing the peace and obstructing justice, officials said.

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.

Injunctions Mentioned

David Willauer, a spokesman for the Food Employers Council, which represents the supermarkets’ management in the labor dispute, said the council 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 the line by Teamsters, some retail clerks, and in one instance sympathetic postal workers.

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 & Commercial Workers, which represents meat cutters and meat wrappers, and the Teamsters, 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 Teamster personnel in response to the strike being launched against Vons. All those stores are members of the Food Employers Council. Unions reported Wednesday that two members of the Council--Stater Bros., which has 94 stores, and Foods Co., which has nine stores, had not yet locked out employees who belong to the striking unions.

Jerry Vercruse, chief negotiator for the Teamsters, said that Ralphs would be the next target of his union. McTeague declined to say which store his union would picket next.

12-Hour Shifts for Police

Police in Irvine said they had put their officers on 12-hour shifts so that a force of 35 officers could stand by Wednesday night. Police said one picket, who ignored warnings to stay clear of a police dog on a leash, was bitten on the leg and suffered a superficial wound.

After Wednesday confrontations at the Irvine warehouse, Irvine officers adopted the tactic of forming a phalanx around arriving and departing trucks to escort them through the picket lines. But by the afternoon, the number of pickets had decreased.

Jerry Scott, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 952 in Orange, addressed a crowd of pickets at 1:15 p.m., urging them to go home, rest and await instructions from union officials.

“Some of you have been here since last night,” Scott said. “You need to go home and rest. You’ve done well here but this is a time to think about keeping our heads. It is important to do it the legal way. What happens here will reflect on our union.”

Soon after Scott’s appeal, only six pickets remained at each of the warehouse gates, and by late afternoon, all was reported quiet there.

Scott claimed that as little as 15% of the usual delivery-truck traffic was passing through the warehouse gates.

Irvine police identified the strikers they arrested as John Rudolph Stegner, 29, of Sunnymead and Michael Thomas Dunthorne, 30, of Mission Viejo on suspicion of obstructing a sidewalk; Kurt Andrew Dunn, 26, of La Habra, on suspicion of being drunk in public, and Danny Wayne McNeill, 27, of Westminster, on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.

Irvine police Wednesday night reported several more instances of people throwing rocks, breaking bottles or firing slingshots. One man was arrested at the Lucky warehouse at 8 p.m. when he allegedly scratched the side of a Lucky-owned vehicle driving into the parking lot.

At the Lucky warehouse in Buena Park, tension was high for a brief period during the morning, Buena Park police reported. The two arrests occurred at about 7:30 a.m. Police identified those arrested as Dennis Rogers of La Habra, who allegedly kicked and dented a car driving through the picket line, and Ben Tsugawa of Stanton, who allegedly jumped onto a truck, broke its windshield with his fist, then struck a police sergeant a glancing blow to the cheek.

Trucks Collide

An independent trucker from Texas leaving the Buena Park warehouse collided with a smaller, flatbed truck on Knott Avenue, sending the latter truck’s driver to the hospital. He was treated and released, but his truck was destroyed, police said.

“The driver said he went out of the driveway a little faster than he should have because of the picketers,” a police spokesman said.

In La Habra Wednesday night, picketing Alpha Beta warehouse worker Rene Sebillano, 18, was arrested for allegedly throwing an unknown object at the car of a fellow employee who was leaving work. “Numerous” other picketers were cited for public drunkenness and drunk driving, Police Sgt. Perry Miller said.

Police in Brea and Fullerton, where other warehouses are located, reported no significant problems.

“It was rough out there for a while,” said La Habra Police Lt. John Rees. “They weren’t letting the cars come through, and they were yelling at the employees who were crossing the line.”

He said, however, that Alpha Beta, owner of that warehouse, had allowed strikers to park in their parking lot and install a portable toilet. “They’ve kind of created a neutral ground,” thus defusing some tension, Rees said.

Bomb Threats Made

Police reported telephoned bomb threats at Ralphs markets in Garden Grove and Santa Ana, but nothing was found at either site.

The supply of meat on the store shelves decreased, according to a random survey by Times’ reporters.

At an Alpha Beta store in Costa Mesa, the meat supply was down but not significantly, assistant manager Doug DeLoss said. “We just got a supply of meat in and they’re cutting it now,” he said.

Management wants to cut the guaranteed work day of meat cutters from eight to four hours; 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 they 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 newly hired employees and be allowed to subcontract more work and move into new warehouses without automatically granting the union recognition at the new locations.

Steve Emmons reported from Orange County and Henry Weinstein from Los Angeles. Contributing to this report were staff writers Thomas Omestad, Roberto Rodriguez and Nancy Skelton in Los Angeles County, Ray Perez in Orange County and Sebastian Dortch in San Diego County.