Alpha Beta Driver Wounded in 1 of 2 Sniping Incidents

As striking Teamsters and meat cutters returned to the bargaining table Thursday, two sniping incidents occurred in Orange County, including a freeway shooting in Tustin that left an Alpha Beta truck driver with a broken arm.

The shooting occurred at 6:25 p.m. on the Santa Ana Freeway. Tustin Police Sgt. Mike Shanahan said Howard Brine, 44, of Vista was driving south when he was hit once in the left arm with a bullet from what appeared to be a .22-caliber rifle. Brine exited at the Newport Avenue off-ramp and flagged down police. He was taken to the Health Care Medical Center in Tustin and was expected to be released.

“We suspect the shooting is related to the labor dispute, since he was driving a delivery truck that was clearly marked as a delivery truck, and he was en route to make a delivery” in Mission Viejo, Shanahan said. Police have no suspects or witnesses.

Police said a second sniper shooting occurred at 7:10 p.m. at the Lambert Road entrance to the Alpha Beta warehouse in La Habra. A passing motorist fired a bullet into the guardhouse, missing the guard by a few feet but striking the house. Police said the guard could not see the car.

Meanwhile, strike supporters unveiled new tactics, sending a busload of union officials to several Vons stores in Orange and Los Angeles counties to persuade retail clerks to join the three-day-old strike. Store managers and some consumers were angered by the strategy.

Striking butchers and Teamsters chose the Vons at 17950 Magnolia St. in Fountain Valley to coax four clerks to walk off the job. Hundreds of other clerks in the county also left work to honor the picket line, a spokesman for Retail Clerks Union Local 234 said.

The four clerks who left the Fountain Valley store said they had been threatened by management that they would be fired if they joined the pickets. Store manager Paula Gamble later said she told them “they might” lose their jobs.

Phil Hawkins, a Vons district manager who arrived at the store when the fourth clerk walked off, refused to answer questions.

Scores of Teamsters also continued to picket Lucky Discount warehouses in Buena Park and Irvine, but police reported no incidents there similar to those that occurred Wednesday when tensions remained near a boiling point all day. Two people, however, were arrested at the Irvine facility early Thursday.

Truck driver Michael Brady, 24, with no known address, was cited for reckless driving when he left the warehouse. One striker, Thomas Philip Morton, 42, of Garden Grove also was arrested for throwing car flares at vehicles, police said.

Irvine Police Lt. A. W. Muir said 17 people have been arrested at the warehouse since the strike began. Another five have been arrested at Lucky’s warehouse in Buena Park, police said.

Five people have been injured in skirmishes precipitated by the lockout of union workers at the two supermarket warehouses.

Police reduced their forces at the two facilities and were no longer escorting trucks coming into the warehouses. However, police said 24-hour surveillance would continue.

Muir said police officials had talked to Teamsters officials in efforts to keep order on the picket line.

Deliveries Affected

“Certainly they have the right to picket, but what happened last evening (Wednesday night) was the throwing of objects, breaking of glass, throwing nails in the street, and these can’t continue. We talked to their leadership, and they agree,” Muir said.

Picketing of the Lucky warehouses appeared to be affecting delivery to area stores. Ken Kinder, manager of a Lucky’s market on Brookhurst Street in Huntington Beach, said he would receive only three produce deliveries a week during the strike, although he normally gets one a day.

“The deliveries are being delayed, no question. But people are still finding everything they need,” Kinder said.

On the negotiations front, federal mediator Frank Allen summoned the two sides back for talks at the Breakers Hotel in Long Beach. Both labor and management said they were entering the talks with an open mind, but neither side was particularly optimistic about an early resolution.

Many Items to Negotiate

“I don’t think we’re going to get any fast settlement,” said Jerry Vercruse, chief negotiator for the 12,000 striking Teamsters. “We’ve got so many major items still to negotiate--maybe 75 items and several are blockblusters,” he said.

Similar sentiments were expressed by David Willauer, a spokesman for the Food Employers Council, which represents the supermarket chains in the negotiations. “It would surprise me if much was accomplished.” But he said he hoped the strike would end before it “escalates into an all-out war.”

The strike began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, one hour after talks between the Food Employers Council and the Teamsters broke down. Vercruse said the Teamsters had offered to submit the union’s final offer to binding arbitration. Willauer said management declined the offer because “it’s hardly appropriate (to arbitrate) a whole lot of complex issues.”

The unions chose Vons as their initial strike target. In response, six other chains--Albertson’s, Alpha Beta, Hughes, Lucky, Ralphs, and Safeway--locked out employees belonging to the striking unions. Stater Bros., a Colton-based chain with 94 stores, has not locked out any workers yet, and company President Jack Brown declined to say why. He denied reports that his company was about to sign an interim agreement with the unions.

‘Me Too’ Agreements

On Thursday, Foods Co., a Commerce-based chain of nine stores, signed an interim contract with the unions. This means the chain has agreed to abide by whatever settlement the two sides ultimately reach. Earlier, Boys, Gelsons, Mayfair and Big Bear signed interim pacts, called “me too” agreements.

Rock-throwing incidents prompted management lawyers to file court actions Thursday. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Irving A. Shimer issued a temporary restraining order limiting pickets to five per entrance at warehouses and requiring the pickets to stay at least five feet apart and keep moving. Additional pickets must remain at least 30 feet away from the entrances. “I want to promote free speech and keep bodies and cars separate,” Shimer said. “I don’t want anybody harassed or hurt. . . . I will not tolerate violence, guns or baseball bats.” The court order does not apply to retail store picketing.

Unions also were active on the legal front. Late Wednesday, officials of retail clerks’ locals in Rialto and Santa Barbara, represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers union, filed separate complaints against Vons for allegedly threatening their members with demotion and salary cuts if they honor the picket lines of the striking meat cutters. Dan Swinton, a spokesman for the Food & Commercial Workers, which also represents the meat cutters, alleged that this conduct by Vons’ officials violated federal labor laws.

Clerks Walking Off

Swinton asserted that close to half of the clerks at the 164 Vons stores in Southern California had left their jobs in support of the strike. A spokesman for retail clerks’ Local 234 in Orange County estimated that one-third of the local’s 16,000 members had walked off the job to honor picket lines. Management sources continued to maintain that these figures were highly exaggerated.

Dan Granger, a Vons spokesman, said that “95%” of the chain’s clerks are working. He said that there had been “isolated cases” of large-scale walkouts. He said 75% of the clerks in a Lancaster store walked out Wednesday but that operations were back to normal Thursday. He said that several Ralphs checkers had volunteered to work at a Vons store in Simi Valley and added that some Alpha Beta checkers are working at some other Vons stores.

He said all the clerks who walked out “will not be allowed back in and will be replaced.”

Granger said Vons made “normal” meat deliveries Thursday, “but the variety won’t be there.” He asserted that warehouses are operating at 50% to 100% and added that the chain was experiencing problems getting products to stores after loading. Granger said he expects those problems to be cleared up by the end of next week.

Unionists Arrive in Bus

At midday Thursday, strike supporters unveiled their novel tactics in the San Gabriel Valley. At 11:30 a.m. about 25 members of Food & Commercial Workers Local 770, the large retail clerks’ local in Los Angeles, arrived by bus at a Vons store at 1421 E. Valley Blvd. in Alhambra. Dressed in suits, they entered the store and began urging retail clerks to walk off the job in support of the strikers.

Groups of four or five union members would surround an employee and urge the person to leave. They clapped their hands as they approached employees. One had a camera and photographed employees who were slow to depart.

Each time an employee walked out the union members cheered. Meanwhile, outside the store, members of striking meat cutters’ and Teamsters’ locals shouted into an open door, “They can’t fire you. Come out here with your friends.” They also chanted “union, union,” and “walk out, walk out.”

“We want to let as many people as we can know what their rights are,” said Andrea Zinder, the research director of Local 770. “We’re telling them that they can’t be fired. Vons has posted notices saying that if you walk off the job, you can’t come back until the strike is settled. That isn’t true,” she declared. “We’re just telling them what this foreshadows for their future. If it can happen (a bad contract) to the meat cutters and the Teamsters, it can happen to the clerks, too.” The clerks’ contract expires in 1987.

Action Called Harassment

After about an hour, about 20 clerks and food boxers had walked off the job.

Jerry Stotko, Vons district manager, said he had never seen anything like Thursday’s action in his 25 years with the company. “This is pure harassment.”

One customer in the check-out line got into a shouting match with the outside pickets, made an obscene gesture toward them with her hand, and screamed, “Shut up, you loud-mouthed bastards.”

Later in the day, the unions repeated the tactic at a Vons in Pasadena, and about half the store’s 40 clerks walked out.