Agreement Disputed : Chain Will Not Close Fullerton Warehouse

Alpha Beta Supermarkets announced Monday that it will not close a Fullerton warehouse--closure would force the layoff of 185 workers--because the Teamsters Union has agreed to a plan that dramatically cuts the wages of newly hired workers, an assertion immediately denied by Teamsters officials.

Alpha Beta had threatened to close the warehouse on the grounds that it could no longer afford to keep the facility open. Company officials said closure was averted when union members agreed Saturday to a new two-tiered wage scale at the warehouse.

But Teamster officials emphatically denied that members approved the company wage proposal.

“It was not a vote on their proposal,” said Gerold Scott, secretary-treasurer of Local 592 in Orange, which represents the 185 workers who would lose their jobs if the Fullerton warehouse closed.

“What the membership voted on was a motion to go to the Teamsters’ Southwest Food Council and ask them to reopen negotiations with the employers on the master contract with regard to only that warehouse,” he said.

Scott did admit that an informal poll of 140 warehouse workers attending a meeting at union headquarters Saturday showed that they were willing to accept the company’s proposal for a two-tiered wage system, under which new employees would be hired at a lower pay scale than current employees.

“But they couldn’t and didn’t vote on it,” said Scott, explaining that all union members involved in the recently settled, 7 1/2-week strike and lockout are covered by a single, master contract.

However, Dave Willauer, a spokesman for the Food Employers Council, disagreed, saying the union members could and did approve the chain’s proposal.

“The union submitted the company’s offer to the membership Saturday, and the members ratified it,” Willauer said. “As far as the company is concerned, because ratification is the last stage in the process, when that occurred, it was over. We have agreed to discontinue the phasing out of the operation.”

Willauer also said that under provisions of the new master contract, individual members of the employers council such as Alpha Beta can negotiate different terms or conditions with a union.

“That’s what the union is neglecting to tell people,” Willauer said.

Paul Crost, attorney for the union, said Monday he had told Willauer that the members had not voted to approve the wage proposal.

The members were not told they were ratifying a wage agreement, Crost said, and “anyway, they do not have the authority to negotiate or ratify something separately. They’re part of, for better or worse, an overall, multi-union unit.

“It appears the company is just trying to drive a wedge between Local 952 and everyone else,” he said.

Lower Future Pay

Under the master contract, experienced warehouse workers already employed are paid $13.85 per hour, while future employees would start at $9.69.

But Alpha Beta’s proposal for its general merchandise warehouse in Fullerton calls for the starting wage for new workers to be $6.54 per hour--less than half the “experienced” rate--eventually rising to $9.35 per hour.

The company has said it plans to close another Southern California warehouse serving Sav-On Drug Stores, which is also owned by Alpha Beta’s parent company, American Foods, and merge the two operations at the Fullerton warehouse, which already handles non-food items such as drugs and sundries.

“But that’s not economically feasible unless the company gets a rate structure that is competitive with the drug industry,” Willauer said Monday. “That’s what they told the union they wanted to do with this facility, even clear back last August. If they can’t, then they’re going to close it and make other arrangements.”