Lucky, Alpha Beta Unions Decry Van de Kamp’s Suit

Officials of seven locals of the union that represents workers at Lucky and Alpha Beta supermarkets in Southern California on Thursday denounced state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp’s suit to block the merger of the two chains.

“If the Van de Kamp suit succeeds, consumers in Southern California will suffer higher food prices and many jobs will be lost,” the representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union locals said in a prepared statement.

A spokesman for the union said the labor leaders had no plans to intercede in the court case on American’s behalf, however.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Kenyon granted Van de Kamp a temporary restaining order blocking the merger of the two chains until a Sept. 16 hearing on whether to take the attorney general’s antitrust suit to trial.

Ruling Clarified

Attorneys for Alpha Beta’s parent, American Stores Co. of Irvine, which acquired Lucky Stores in June for $2.5 billion and has since been preparing to merge the two chains, filed a motion with Kenyon on Thursday seeking to dismiss Van de Kamp’s suit.

They also obtained a clarification of the judge’s Wednesday ruling. The clarification says that American officials will not have to reverse any of the merger arrangements made through Sept. 6.

In their brief statement Thursday, the food workers’ locals claimed that because Van De Kamp is seeking to force American Stores to divest itself of some of the nearly 600 Alpha Beta and Lucky stores it will own in California, the net result will be increased prices, lowered wages and the loss of jobs and of union membership.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Chester Horn scoffed at the charges, maintaining that the Van de Kamp suit would not “cost a single job in California, because we are not asking for the closure of any stores.”

Sell to Independents

Union spokesman Bob Bleiweiss said, however, that labor officials believe that Van de Kamp wants American to sell many of its stores “and, inevitably, when a major chain sells stores in California, it sells to independents, who almost always raise prices. Independents also aren’t union shops, so they pay lower wages and some of them probably will shut stores down and make parking lots out of them,” he said.

Bleiweiss said the union also has been trying to begin negotiations with American Stores on adapting existing labor contracts to the merger and won’t be able to start until the suit is resolved.

He said the union expects to announce today that it has reached agreement with Vons on treatment of union employees who work at the Southern California Safeway stores, warehouses and processing plants Vons acquired earlier this year.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union represents “tens of thousands” of workers at Lucky, Alpha Beta, Vons and Safeway markets in California, Bleiweiss said.

Times staff writer Mary Ann Galante contributed to this report.