The Region : 3 Food Industry Locals Plan to Merge

In an effort to increase their collective bargaining power, three Los Angeles food industry union locals representing supermarket clerks, butchers and wholesale meat packers are planning to merge, officials said. The locals are all members of the same international union, United Food and Commercial Workers, but have negotiated separate contracts in the past. Under an arrangement approved by their executive boards, the 3,500 meat cutters represented by UFCW Local 421 and the 5,000 meat packers represented by Local 274 would merge into Local 770, which represents 25,000 market clerks.