Stores Make New Offer to Teamsters in 41-Day Strike

Negotiators for seven supermarket chains delivered a new proposal to Teamsters Union representatives Sunday in a move aimed at removing the last major obstacle to a settlement of the union’s 41-day-old strike-lockout in Southern California.

But negotiators for striking meat cutters told their rank and file that they had made little progress in an all-day negotiating session Saturday.

Change in Stance

The new proposal, made Sunday morning after an all-night negotiating session in Anaheim, was described by Teamster officials as an offer by supermarket executives to drop previous demands for a two-tier wage scale, except in contracts covering automobile mechanics and non-food warehouse workers. Under the system, markets would be allowed to hire new employees at substantially lower wages.

“We have pretty much what we’ve been asking for, an elimination of the two-tier system,” Jerry Vercruse, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 630 and chief union negotiator, said after a meeting with Teamster members Sunday. “But nothing’s binding until we have a total contract package.”

Market spokesman David Willauer, without confirming details, said the offer “represents a modification of our stance. Whether or not we can make more progress is up to them (the Teamsters). We’ve gone as far as we possibly can go.”

Vercruse said market executives were no longer insisting that the union’s dairy and office workers be covered by the two-tier wage scale.

Goal Is ‘Zero’

“Now they’re asking only for the automotive and non-food warehouse workers,” he said. “That’s only about 20% or so of our total membership. We have to get them down to zero.”

Vercruse told striking Teamsters Sunday that if an agreement on the two-tier system could be worked out today, he is optimistic that “we might be able to wrap this up by the middle of this week.”

Willauer said no progress was made Saturday in lengthy negotiations with the meat cutters.

And Ray Long, executive secretary of Local 585 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, gave the same message to a meeting of the meat cutters Sunday.

Little Progress Seen

“We’re at the same place we were at two weeks ago--or six weeks ago, for that matter,” he said.

Also stalled over supermarkets’ demands for a two-tier wage scale, the meat cutter negotiations also involve management proposals to cut the guaranteed work day of newly hired workers to four hours from eight.