Markets, Unions Reach 12th-Hour Accord, Avert Strike : Labor: Representatives of six major store chains and 80,000 workers approve a tentative agreement on a three-year contract.

Eighteen minutes after a take-it-or-leave-it deadline--a delay that inadvertently caused hundreds of workers to walk off their jobs and begin picketing--representatives of six major supermarket chains and 80,000 workers reached a tentative agreement Thursday night on a new three-year contract.

The two sides, which from the start appeared clearly afraid of being pushed into a strike, averted one by reaching last-minute compromises on wage, job-security and health issues.

About 73,000 clerks and 7,000 meat cutters, who had been poised to strike at 7 p.m. unless an agreement was reached, will begin voting on ratification Saturday, with results to be announced by the United Food and Commercial Workers early next week.

The presidents of the 10 union locals involved in negotiations said they will recommend ratification.

Glee, modulated by fatigue, was restrained on both sides.

“I’m satisfied,” said John Sperry, president of 12,000-member UFCW Local 324 in Orange County. “I don’t think anyone who ever goes through the negotiating process is ever happy.”

“I think both sides are equally satisfied,” said David Willauer, a spokesman for the Food Employers Council, which represented 800 Ralphs, Vons, Alpha Beta, Stater Bros., Albertson’s and Lucky markets from San Diego to Bakersfield.

Spokesmen for both sides declined to discuss details of the agreement until after ratification.

However sources familiar with the negotiations said the markets agreed to raise their last offer of annual raises of about 3.5%. Clerks now earn from $4.25 to $13.05 an hour; meat cutters, $9.31 to $14.33.

It was also learned that the markets agreed to some restrictions on their ability to purchase prepackaged meat.

The new agreement also included language aimed at protecting full-time jobs, a sensitive issue in an industry where the proportion of part-time workers is soaring. Markets say this has been necessary in order to adjust to peak hours as well as a consumer demand for 24-hour service.

The union sought to introduce a clause that whenever a full-time employee quit or was fired, his slot would be preserved instead of being broken up into two part-time jobs. The exact wording used in the agreement was not available.

Federal mediator Frank Allen said there were compromises on both sides. He said the talks were among the most difficult he has seen in two decades of monitoring food industry talks because “after some years of concessionary bargaining, unions are trying to capture some of the things they gave up during the lean years.”

Three times in the last two weeks the union had set a strike deadline. Each time, it was extended.

Thursday night, union leaders arranged a “fail-safe” system in which pickets would be sent to the targeted chain--Lucky, with 213 stores--at 7 p.m. if no phone call of a settlement had been received.

The markets’ final offer was relayed to union leaders half an hour before the deadline. The presidents of the locals were still deciding how to respond--their initial assessment was not unanimous, sources said--when 7 p.m. came. By the time the local presidents decided to accept the offer, at 7:18 p.m., many members of four of the locals in Los Angeles and Orange Counties had begun to picket Lucky stores. Calls were quickly made to inform them of the settlement.

Randy Brooks, night manager of a Lucky store in the Marina Pacifica Mall in Long Beach, had spent his time up to the deadline teaching six potential new employees--including a construction worker and a housewife--how to use the cash register. He then described the difference between honeydew, crenshaw and casaba melons.

Employees of the store called the wait nerve-racking as some shoppers rushed in to stock up just in case. When she heard of the agreement, clerk Hilda Ramirez sighed and said, “Thank goodness!”

Clerks last struck in 1978, when they were out five days.

Unlike some unions, which maintain a “no contract, no work” tradition, the UFCW had indicated it was reluctant to strike.

With a work force made more transient by the food industry’s shift to a largely part-time force, the union did not have the type of membership likely to dig in for a long strike. Some analysts suggested it would take weeks to make a dent in the chains’ business. Nor did the chains seem bothered by the prospect of permanently losing long-time customers.

“There’s not much customer loyalty in this business to start with,” one expert said.

A broad array of issues--many of them reflective of a supermarket industry that is trying to squeeze costs while offering broader services--stood in the way of a settlement. They included:

The union’s demand for limits on the markets’ use of non-union vending companies that not only sell products but stock displays.

The markets’ offer to raise guaranteed hours for part-time workers only if the union also accepted tougher eligibility requirements for health benefits. The union said this would make entry-level workers ineligible for company-funded health-maintenance-organization benefits.

The markets’ insistence on diverting pension contributions to the employee health and welfare fund, which employers say is becoming more expensive.

The markets portrayed themselves as under intense pressure to hold costs down to compete with non-union companies, particularly large warehouse-style markets that pay lower wages.

Union leaders contended the markets were exaggerating their problems.

Industry analysts say the six chains are generally healthy. Ralphs, which cut its quarterly losses to $4 million in the first quarter of 1990, plans to open 39 new stores by 1991.

Times staff writer Shawn Doherty contributed to this story.