Supermarket Workers Are Set to Strike on Saturday

Retail clerks in San Diego and throughout Southern California voted overwhelmingly Thursday to give their union leaders authority to call a strike against six major grocery chains and announced that the strike would start at Ralphs Grocery Co. stores at 12:01 a.m. Saturday if no settlement is reached by then.

The two sides are to return to the bargaining table at 10 a.m. today in a last-ditch attempt to forestall a strike. Both sides predicted a long day of negotiations that would probably run up to the midnight deadline.

A negotiating session called by federal mediators for Thursday never got off the ground. Sources from the United Food and Commercial Workers, the union representing the clerks, and the Food Employers Council, which represents the six chains, said a union financial consultant who was needed to evaluate proposals was unable to get to the meeting.

The strike would affect about 45,000 workers and 850 stores owned by Albertson’s, Lucky, Ralphs, Safeway, Stater Bros. and Vons from the Mexican border to San Luis Obispo.

Spokesmen for the Food and Commercial Workers said that, with ballots from all eight locals counted, 27,314 of the 31,814 clerks--86%--voting had cast ballots to reject management’s offer and to authorize a strike. A two-thirds majority of all those casting ballots was necessary for strike authorization.

The final tally was delayed because of friction that developed between leaders of the San Diego and Santa Monica locals and the other six locals. Leaders of those two unions stormed out of a joint union meeting in Buena Park.

Tom Vandeveld, president of the San Diego local, and Michael Straeter, president of the Santa Monica local, said they were protesting a “secret meeting” negotiating session held Wednesday.

“We all took a blood oath not to meet and talk with employers on our own and they went ahead and did this,” Straeter said. “That’s why I’m really angry.”

Leaders of the other locals said they were chagrined about the walkout and hoped it could be patched up quickly. John Sperry, president of Local 324 based in Buena Park, predicted there would be “a united front” if there was a strike.

Sperry; Rick Icaza, president of Los Angeles-based Local 770, and Bill Olwell, the Food and Commercial Workers’ national vice president in charge of collective bargaining, met briefly in a Carson restaurant Wednesday with Joseph McLaughlin, head of the Food Employers Council, and one of his assistants, according to sources from both sides. The meeting was described as informal in nature with no substantive bargaining occurring.

Still, Sperry seemed considerably more hopeful that a strike could be averted than he had earlier this week. He said Thursday that his estimate of the probability of a strike is now 60% for and 40% against--a considerably different tone than he took Tuesday when he indicated a strike was a virtual certainty.

In San Diego, representatives of Local 135 said they were shocked at the secret negotiating session. As a result, the local decided to count its 5,146 ballots independently of the other locals.

Norman Bell, secretary-treasurer of Local 135, also said the San Diego and Santa Monica locals would not accept any “inferior offers” that employers might make, even if the Los Angeles and Orange County chapters negotiated one secretly. What that means is that San Diego grocery store clerks and baggers may walk out even if their counterparts in Los Angeles and Orange County do not.

Despite the ill feelings, voting by the San Diego clerks matched that by their counterparts. Local 135 rejected the contract offer by 87.6%.

Bell said the possibility of strikes at the 115 supermarkets in San Diego County before the deadline is strong.

“We’re totally prepared, if we have to, to go on strike within half an hour’s notice from any point now until midnight Friday,” said Bell.

“We’ve kept our membership very informed,” he said. “All we have to do is get the word from their picket captain and go on strike. It looks to me that if there is not some significant change in the offer we’re getting, we will go on strike.”

Throughout Southern California, the six chains trained potential strikebreakers and the union distributed picket signs. But a random survey of six Los Angeles area stores found no evidence that shoppers were beginning to hoard food in anticipation of a walkout.

Union leaders did not publicly state why they had selected Ralphs as the initial target, but the announcement was hardly shocking. Union sources said that internal polling showed a particularly strong degree of militancy among Ralphs’ workers, stemming from variety of issues. These include a longstanding battle over the chain’s attempts to cut down the number of high-paid, veteran clerks and replace them with lower-paid workers.

Gene Brown, a Ralphs’ spokesman, said he was not surprised by the announcement and indicated that it was academic in any case. The policy of the Food Employers Council is that “a strike against one company is a strike against all,” meaning that the other stores will lock out their unionized employees as soon as the strike begins.

The Food and Commercial Workers are seeking improved job security, improved health and welfare benefits, higher wages and other changes in the contract. The supermarket owners have proposed a three-year wage freeze, though there would be lump sum bonuses of up to $500 a year each year. They also want to reduce the amount of money they put into the employees’ health and welfare plan and expand the role of lower-paid workers as another way of cutting labor costs.

Not all Southern California supermarkets will be struck. The union has reached interim agreements with Boys, Hughes, Mayfair and the Big Bear chain in San Diego. Those agreements provide that, in return for not being struck, those chains will accept whatever agreement the union ultimately reaches with the Food Employers Council.

Times staff writers Robert S. Weiss and David Reyes contributed to this story.