Scattered Sales Gains Found During Walkout : Strike Offers Small Markets Little

When the Teamsters and meat cutters’ unions struck Vons and were locked out of six other Southern California supermarket chains, Bill Pillette figured that his small neighborhood market in Corona del Mar would be getting quite a few new, strike-honoring customers.

But now, a full month after the bitter walkout began, Pillette still is waiting for a dramatic surge in business.

“(The strike) didn’t affect us like we thought it would,” said the manager of Pacific Ranch Market, who acknowledged that sales had increased about 5% since the strike began, but “we thought (the increase) would be more--10%, maybe 20%.”

Pillette’s experience, shared by many independent grocers throughout Orange County, demonstrates that the supermarket chains have managed to keep their shelves relatively well-stocked and that many customers are crossing picket lines at their regular grocery stores. In addition to Vons, other chains involved in the labor dispute are Albertsons, Alpha Beta, Hughes, Lucky, Ralphs and Safeway.

“There’s supposed to be a ricochet in business,” said Charlie Mirarchi, owner of Celestrio Quality Meat, a Costa Mesa butcher shop. “But I haven’t seen it yet.”

And Cesar Gonzalez, co-owner of the Ibero-American Market in Anaheim, said he has had little in the way of new business since the labor dispute began. A few people from the neighborhood are doing more of their shopping at his store because they are union members and don’t want to cross picket lines at any of the big chain stores, he said, but otherwise, business is normal.

But there are exceptions.

Delaney’s Cannery Village Market in Newport Beach has seen its business jump 25% in the last month, according to manager Tim McMillen. He attributed some of the increase to Thanksgiving buying, typically higher than average, but said this year’s holiday volume was higher than that of a year ago.

New customers at Delaney’s, which is across the street from a Lucky supermarket and half a block from a Hughes market, didn’t know the small grocery existed until recently, McMillen said. He added that some of them have vowed to stick with his market even after the strike.

The owner of the Beef Palace Butcher Shop in Huntington Beach also said that he has seen an increase in both customers and sales and is working his employees longer hours as a result. Mel Free, whose family has owned the shop since 1890, said the 20% boost in sales is well above the traditional seasonal increase.

One reason many small, non-union stores aren’t seeing a big increase in new shoppers is that even some unionized markets--like the eight-store, Paramount-based Super A Foods chain--have not been hurt by the strike.

Such stores are operating under a tentative labor settlement with the meat cutters’ union until a final agreement is reached with the other markets. Other chains with similar agreements include Stater Brothers, Gelson’s, Mayfair, Big Bear and Boys.

Meat cutters at those stores work their regular shifts and then walk the picket lines at other markets.

Contributes to Fund

Henry Calistro, manager of the meat department at the Santa Ana Super A store on South Main Street, said he joins the pickets near his home in Rolling Heights whenever he can. And like his three co-workers at the store, he contributes $6 a week to the union’s strike fund. “Whatever the outcome is, it’ll affect us, too,” he said.

Calistro said the union’s interim settlements reflect a sympathetic attitude toward the smaller grocery store. “These markets can’t afford to go on strike,” he said. “They’d go under.”

Although the strike by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents the meat cutters and wrappers, has not hurt most independent grocery stores, the Teamsters’ strike has forced some store owners to pick up their goods themselves.

Gonzalez said he has had to pick up “little by little” the Central American and Spanish import dry grocery items his Ibero-American Market depends on from a grocery depot in Anaheim. Truck drivers represented by the Teamsters normally transport the items from a depot in Los Angeles.

An official of Super A stores said that employees have been forced to double up on their duties to get merchandise to the shelves and added that the grocery chain has also had to depend on more direct shipments from brokers and manufacturers since the labor dispute began.