Strike Talks Move Slowly; Picketing of Vons Intensifies

Negotiations in Southern California’s 4-day-old supermarket strike continued Friday as markets geared up for the first weekend of shopping since the walkout began.

Picketing intensified at the 164 Vons stores in Southern California, including many in Orange County. Consumers also found it more difficult to get the cuts of meat they wanted.

Meanwhile, Vons secured a court order from Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John L. Cole limiting the number of pickets at market entrances, similar to a ruling attorneys for a number of market chains obtained from a another Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Thursday restricting picketing at their warehouses.

The order issued Friday, which was not contested by the unions, limits striking unions to five pickets per entrance at each Vons store and bars the blocking of entrances or harassing of customers and employees of a store. The order also directs pickets not to drink alcoholic beverages within 400 yards of a store entrance.

Restraint on Entering

Judge Cole’s ruling also prohibits pickets from entering stores. This was a restraint that management was particularly anxious to obtain after incidents Thursday in which groups of union members walked into stores, chanting and singing, and successfully urged a number of retail clerks to leave their jobs in support of the strike.

The most spirited demonstration occurred at the Vons Value Center at 4637 W. Chapman Ave. in Orange Friday. About 50 meat cutters and Teamsters picketed the store and convinced about 35 clerks and clerks’ helpers to leave. Debbie Estrada, one of the clerks who walked out, said she felt her action might lead to a quicker resolution of the strike.

“The faster we support the strikers, the sooner the strike might be settled,” she said. “Vons is a good company, but they can’t run the stores by themselves.”

Frank Buikstra, an 18-year Vons employee and the shop steward at that particular store, said he had walked off the job early Tuesday when the strike began. He led the cheers when his fellow clerks made quick exits from their jobs.

“I believe in this strike. I’ve never crossed a picket line in my life and I never will,” he said.

Buikstra handed those clerks who walked out pieces of paper with their union’s telephone number so they could call and tell union officials they had joined the strike. Many quickly crowded around a phone near the store entrance.

Michael O’Rourke, a spokesman for the Retail Clerks Union Local 324, said he estimated that half of the 2,009 Vons’ clerks registered with the union have left their jobs to honor the meat cutters’ and Teamsters’ strike.

There was less violence on picket lines Friday, although the number of arrests in the strike rose to about 40 in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Friday night, Irvine police arrested a striking warehouseman who is alleged to have shot twice at a non-union worker with a BB gun. The worker, who was not identified, told police that Steven J. Adams, 23, of Tustin shot him with a BB gun on his way into the Lucky warehouse Friday morning, hitting him on the side of the head and producing a large welt. Adams allegedly fired again at the same worker at about 7:30 p.m. and missed. Police arrested him at the scene.

Adams was booked at the Orange County Jail on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

More than 10 people have been injured in picket line incidents. And between Thursday night and Friday morning, snipers fired at two independent truckers hauling food in separate incidents on Interstate 5 in Downey and Imperial Highway in La Habra.

Booked for Assault

In the latter incident, Douglas Alan Davis, 34, of Fullerton was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a charge of firing a .38-caliber Derringer pistol at an independent trucker. No one was hurt in the incident.

Also, late Thursday night, David Blakeman, 31, of Los Alamitos was slightly injured when a non-union employee leaving Lucky’s warehouse in Irvine allegedly hit him. Police arrested Bert Ellis Sims, 68, of Anaheim on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

Irvine Police Lt. A. W. Muir said, however, that the situation at the warehouse, which was the scene of confrontations earlier in the week, “had quieted down considerably.”

Progress in negotiations was reported to be slow. Negotiators for the striking Teamsters Union were talking with the Food Employers Council, which represents management of the major supermarket chains. Representatives of the United Food & Commercial Workers, who bargain for the striking meat cutters, sat in on the discussions.

Lengthy talks between the Teamsters and the Food Employers Council recessed at 12:20 a.m. Friday in Long Beach after several hours of discussion about one issue: management’s demand that it be allowed to subcontract work that is now done by unionized drivers, warehouse personnel and office employees.

David Willauer, a spokesman for the Food Employers, said “some progress” had been made at the session. Jerry Vercruse, chief negotiator for the Teamsters, said management had agreed to present a specific list of situations in which it would want to subcontract and that the union would review them.

Other key issues with the Teamsters involve management’s demands that it be allowed to impose a lower wage scale on newly hired employees and be allowed to move into new warehouses without automatically granting the union recognition at the new locations.

Principal unresolved issues with the meat cutters are management’s goal of cutting the guaranteed work day from eight to four hours; the introduction of a new, lower-paid classification of worker called a “meat clerk” who would perform about 70% of the tasks now done by a meat cutter, and reduction of the number of hours a day stores are required to have a journeyman meat cutter on duty.

The talks were moved to the Anaheim Hilton Hotel later Friday.

Vons’ Sales Down 10%

Sales at Vons--the chain that the striking unions chose as their initial target--are down 10% since the walkout began, according to Dan Granger, Vons’ vice president of marketing. He said the meat supply at the 164 Vons markets in Southern California was improving. But “we’re still having trouble” getting enough drivers to deliver food from warehouses, Granger acknowledged.

An informal survey by The Times found that the impact of the strike varied from one Vons store to another. One shopper told a Times reporter that she had been able to find only 20 of 40 items on her shopping list at the Vons on Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena Friday morning. However, there did appear to be an adequate supply of steaks, chops and canned hams. Most check stands were open and the normal complement of bag boys was on hand.

The Vons on National Boulevard near the Santa Monica Freeway in West Los Angeles had no fish and limited selections of meat, especially pork. The store had no milk, as was the case at the Vons on Wilshire Boulevard and 13th Street in Santa Monica.

But at four Vons stores in central Los Angeles and one in Downey, most cuts of meat and poultry were in good supply. Fish was available in small quantities. Meat was plentiful at a Vons in Mission Hills and at two of the chain’s stores in Woodland Hills, although one was short of chicken.

Signs of Hoarding

The new Vons Pavilion in Garden Grove was teeming with customers Friday morning despite the presence of a dozen pickets. The meat supply was plentiful. Store manager Larry Vanderdoes said about eight management employees and four temporary workers were handling the meat cutting.

As the strike lengthens, there are signs that some consumers are starting to hoard meat.

“They have been panic-buying,” said Steve Scarpa, store manager of the Albertsons Food Center on Rosemead Boulevard in Temple City. “We’ve had the best week in a long time,” he said.

At the Safeway on Azusa Avenue in Covina, shopper Theresa Worthington filled her cart with close to 30 pounds of beef, chicken and pork. The tab came to $100. “I can’t take a chance that the strike is going to last,” she said. “My daughter is an invalid, and it is essential that she have protein.”

Safeway is one of six large chains that locked out its meat cutters and Teamsters in a prearranged act of unity after the unions struck Vons at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. The unions have been picketing Safeway distribution centers, and union representatives said they planned to start picketing Safeway’s 182 retail outlets within the next few days. The Teamsters have delayed earlier plans to target Ralphs markets for picketing.

Eight Chains Involved

The market chains involved in the dispute are Albertsons, Alpha Beta, Hughes, Lucky, Ralphs, Safeway, Stater Bros. and Vons. Stater Bros. is the only chain that has not locked out employees from the striking unions.

Four chains--Big Bear, Foods Co., Gelson’s and Mayfair--have signed interim agreements with the unions and are not being struck. Those chains have agreed to abide by whatever contract is ultimately negotiated between the unions and the Food Employers Council.

Although most of the chains’ retail stores have not been picketed yet, they are still affected by the strike. All their warehouses are being picketed, and most have had difficulty recruiting delivery drivers. At a Lucky store in Huntington Beach, the store manager said his principal problem was a lack of produce. During the strike, said Ken Kinder, the store is getting only three deliveries a week, while he usually receives one a day.

Some independent markets seemed to be benefiting from the strike. Ray Pachecho, a meat cutter at Plow Boys in Hawaiian Gardens, said the store was doing twice as much as business as usual. A meat cutter at another independent, the Han Wah Supermarket in San Gabriel, said there had been a 20% increase in the number of meat customers.