Tentative Market Pact Falls Apart : Butchers Reject Offer; Teamsters Strongly Approve It

The tentative settlement of the Southern California supermarket strike-lockout fell apart on Thursday when members of one of the two unions involved in the 53-day-old dispute refused to ratify a new three-year contract.

With surprising vehemence, 55% of the meat cutters and meat wrappers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers voted against the contract submitted to them by the Food Employers Council, which negotiated on behalf of seven supermarket chains.

The meat cutters bitterly criticized the proposed pact for excessively weakening union work rules and threatening job security.

Teamsters OK Pact

Meanwhile, drivers and warehouse workers represented by the Teamsters Union--many claiming they had achieved victory over supermarket attempts to weaken traditional work rules--voted overwhelmingly to ratify a separate three-year offer made to them.

Meat cutters voted against the new contract 1,640 to 2,040. The Teamster contract was being approved by an approximate total of 4,500 to 1,800, with 90% of the ballots counted.

The rejection by the meat cutters means that the work stoppage is likely to continue at seven supermarket chains indefinitely; Teamsters have vowed throughout the dispute that they will not return to work until the meat cutters ratify a contract.

About 12,000 Teamsters and 10,000 butchers at nearly 1,000 markets from San Diego to San Luis Obispo are involved in the dispute, which began Nov. 5 when the unions struck Vons. Six other markets--Alpha Beta, Hughes, Ralphs, Safeway, Albertsons and Lucky (Food Basket in San Deigo)--retaliated by locking out their union members.

David Willauer, a spokesman for the food employers, said the markets had no immediate plans to request further negotiations because the offer made to the meat cutters was the best the markets had.

“We’ve gone as far as we’re going to go,” Willauer said. The unions “called the strike. It looks like they’d better find a way to end it.”

Judging by comments made by workers as they gathered to listen to the contract proposals and vote on them, the difference between the two unions was that the Teamsters believed their negotiators had won on critical issues of job security, while the meat cutters did not.

At a meeting of UFCW Local 421 in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday night, Gerald McTeague, the local’s secretary treasurer and chief negotiator for the meat cutters, was continually shouted down by members of a raucous audience who did not believe his claims that the new contract achieved the union’s objectives.

Members were upset that the new contract gave the markets more flexibility in scheduling higher-salaried workers and authority to create a new rung of permanent employees paid less than $6 an hour.

McTeague warned the meat cutters that they were being unrealistic if they expected to force a better deal out of supermarket negotiators.

“You can continue it (the strike) for another two or four weeks but when we come back here we’ll have less than we have now,” he said amidst cries of anger. “There are enough scabs out there doing your work now.”

McTeague’s local, which voted 668 to 348 in favor of the contract, was the only one of six meat cutter locals in which union leaders formally asked the membership to approve the markets’ contract offer. In the other five, the leaders simply described the terms of the contract and stated they were remaining neutral.

Teamsters to Meet

Officials of Teamsters union locals are scheduled to meet today to decide how to proceed in the wake of the meat cutter contract rejection. One alternative to the pledge of staying on the picket lines would be for Teamsters to return to work while pledging not to cross meat cutter picket lines, sources familiar with the unions said.

Teamsters Joint Council 42 President Mike Riley said Thursday night he did not expect Teamsters to amend their pledge to the meat cutters.

The Teamsters concluded their negotiations with the Food Employers Council, which represents the markets, during the weekend. The United Food and Commercial Workers finished its talks early Monday.

At that point it appeared that the end of the strike was in sight because, after previous refusals, both unions had finally agreed to submit a supermarket contract proposal to union members for a ratification vote.

Felt Pressured

However, a number of meat cutter officials complained on Thursday that they had felt pressured by the food employers into submitting an offer to their members that they were certain would be rejected, and for that reason declined to endorse the contract.

The results were clear from the start. In Long Beach, those attending a morning session of UFCW Local 551 voted 544 to 101 against ratifying the proposed contract.

It was evidence that the supermarkets “really did not read” the determination of the rank and file, said D. Whitey Ulrich, president of the local.

Jim Bird, secretary-treasurer of the food and commercial workers Local 439, which opposed the contract 268 to 472, said the result was “overwhelming.”

“I was sure it would not pass but not by this kind of margin,” Bird said. “It’s hard for me to believe these people are this adamant.”

Obligated to Do It

Bird said he decided to offer the seemingly unacceptable offer to his members because “any time management throws something on the table and says ‘This is my last, best and final offer,’ you’re obligated to take it to the members.”

The meat cutter contract offer made three changes that members said threatened their job security by encouraging markets to replace them with lower-paid employees.

It created a “two-tier” wage system that would pay newly hired meat wrappers a starting wage of $5.53 an hour, less than half of what an experienced meat wrapper makes.

It cut in half, from 16 to 8, the number of hours per day that a market must have a journeyman meat cutter on duty. A journeyman meat cutter is paid $13.48 an hour.

And it cut the minimum day for newly hired workers from eight hours to four.

The contract contained language promising that management would not use lower-paid workers to cut the schedules of meat cutters, and that each market must recall all laid-off meat wrappers before hiring new wrappers under the second-tier arrangement.

Argument Didn’t Work

McTeague insisted that such guarantees constituted “the job security we’ve needed,” and in reference to rejections of the contract by other meat cutter locals earlier in the day he urged his audience, “don’t let anyone b------t you.”

But generally, the argument did not work.

“This is sick,” said Stanley Bogusiewkz, a meat cutter at the Long Beach meeting. “I didn’t talk to one man who said he voted for this.”

Bogusiewkz said he was also dissatisfied that the proposal did not contain a cost-of-living increase. For both the meat cutter and Teamster contracts, the employers offered annual bonuses of $500 and $1,000 for 1986 and 1987, respectively, and an hourly adjustment of wages (50 cents for meat cutters, 40 cents for Teamsters) in 1988.

Months of Picketing

“It’s not worth it . . . to walk for almost two months and still get offered the same contract,” said Jerry Koenig, an Orange County meat cutter.

Koenig, a butcher for 25 years, said the $3,000 savings he had when the strike began is just about gone. He bought Christmas presents for his five children with credit cards, hoping the bills would not reach him until late next month, he said.

Some meat cutters in Long Beach said they believed their local’s president, Ulrich, felt pressured to achieve a settlement before a Jan. 3 Los Angeles Superior Court hearing, in which he and the heads of numerous other Teamster and meat cutter locals face contempt charges. Attorneys for the markets contend that the unions have violated restraining orders that prohibit union members from threatening, harassing or throwing objects at market chain warehouses.

Ulrich, noting that the proposed settlement calls on the markets to drop all such civil court matters once the contracts are ratified, acknowledged that he had hoped a settlement could be reached before the court date.

‘Two-Tier’ Plan

The Teamsters, meanwhile, fended off a management proposal to create a “two-tier” wage plan in which future hires would be paid on a separate, drastically lower pay scale. Instead, it accepted a “progression” wage plan under which new workers would start off on a lower scale but join the pay scale enjoyed by current workers after three to five years of employment.

In numerous industries, the new Teamster plan is regarded as a two-tier plan. The difference is that in a progression plan, the two tiers eventually merge. The Teamsters’ chief negotiator, Jerry Vercruse, said Thursday that the difference is crucial because “too many unions in this country have agreed to permanently lower rates for new hires. Employers thought that because other unions had given in, this one would.”

The Teamsters acknowledged the markets’ right to use part-time workers at lower wages--which the markets regard as a key to cost-cutting and which the union regards as a scheme to phase out union members. However, the markets pledged that any new part-time work programs will be subject to union approval or resolved through binding arbitration.

Similarly, the markets agreed to subcontract work to non-union companies, such as railroads, only if the change will not result in layoffs of union members.

Offered Improvements

The markets also offered increased pension and health insurance benefits.

Vercruse received rousing applause from 1,500 union members at a meeting in East Los Angeles on Thursday when he claimed, “The employers got nowhere anything near . . . what they thought they were going to get.”

After those remarks, Vercruse’s audience, which consisted of Teamsters from several locals, voted roughly 12 to 1 in favor of ratifying the contract.

Many Teamsters said they agreed with Vercruse’s interpretation of a victory over management, and besides, noted Teamster Frank Gardea, “Everybody’s tired of being out.”

The only significant criticism of the new Teamsters contract appeared to be the wording of an amnesty section in which employers pledged no retribution against strikers and the union promised it would not punish members who had crossed picket lines or non-union workers hired by the markets during the strike. However, markets would be permitted to discharge any worker convicted of a strike-related felony.

Marked by Violence

The strike has been marked by numerous violent incidents, including shots fired into trucks of substitute drivers, trucks set afire and frequent stink bombs set off inside markets, which forced evacuations.

Several Teamsters contended that those convicted of felonies should receive protection from firing since they were no worse than “scabs.”

“There were a lot of guys who did things that a lot of us didn’t have the (guts) to do,” said one. “A lot of that stuff is what made this (strike) effective.”

Said another: “We all slashed tires. Just not all of us got caught.”