Talks on Hold in Strife-Torn Food Walkout

A strike that has affected seven Southern California supermarket chains concluded its first week Monday with no resolution in sight.

No negotiations were held Monday and none were scheduled for today. There has been no bargaining since talks broke off Saturday night.

Scattered reports of violence continued. In Anaheim, police said an independent driver’s truck was hit by a bullet Monday that shattered a window.

Robert Lynn Bohn, 24, of Modesto told police that about 11 a.m. he was stopped at a traffic light on the corner of Santa Ana Canyon Road and the Imperial Highway immediately after making a delivery at a Vons supermarket nearby. He said he heard a gunshot and saw the passenger window shatter and then saw a small pickup truck pull away. Police had no suspects in the alleged shooting.

Blocking Delivery Trucks

In Corona, strikers picketing a Food Barn pushed a trash bin off a loading dock in an apparent attempt to block delivery trucks’ access to the dock, said Corona Police Lt. Fred Biggs.

The picketers briefly surrounded the front end of one truck, Biggs said, and left it with a flat tire.

Representatives of striking meat cutters and Teamsters said they had no contact with negotiators for the Food Employers Council, the bargaining agent for the markets, or federal mediator Frank Allen, who has been supervising the talks.

David Willauer, a spokesman for the employers, said the council was waiting for a written response from the Teamsters to a proposal the group made to the union Friday on the thorny issue of subcontracting work now done by union members.

Meanwhile, Dan Swinton, a spokesman for the striking unions, asserted that the strike had severely curtailed business at Vons markets, the strikers’ initial target. That was flatly disputed by Dan Granger, vice president of marketing for Vons, which has 164 stores in Southern California.

“We’re estimating, following a poll of six counties, that Vons has lost conservatively $15 million and it could be as high as $24 million,” Swinton said. He said the estimate was based on discussions with union officials in six counties where stores are being picketed.

Swinton said that a typical Vons store did $300,000 a week business and that business typically was off 50% during the first week of the strike.

“That’s absolutely crazy,” Granger replied.

He acknowledged that the stores had suffered some loss of business, but Granger stressed that part of the decline was normal for the second week of the month. He said store business normally declines 6% to 7% from the first week to the second week of the month.

Swinton and Granger also gave widely varying estimates of how many Vons clerks have left their jobs in support of the strike. Swinton said that 35% of Vons clerks were honoring picket lines.

Granger said the figures were an exaggeration. He said only 5% of the stores’ clerks were honoring picket lines.