Grocery Union Local Plans South County Satellite Plant

In a move driven by membership increases in growing South County, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said it will set up a satellite office here early next year.

The facility will be in two adjacent buildings that the union recently purchased for an estimated $1.4 million.

The union’s Local 324, headquartered in Buena Park, is the largest labor union local in the county.

Formerly known as the Retail Clerks Union, United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 324 represents grocery and drugstore checkers throughout Orange County and southeast Los Angeles. It also represents some Disneyland employees.

It has about 22,000 members, most of them living and working in Orange County.

A spokeswoman for the union said that a south Orange County regional office has long been needed because of the increasing number of grocery stores and other retail outlets there with unionized work forces.

She said the union intends to knock out a connecting wall and combine the two buildings into a single, 8,400-square-foot facility and plans to move in next year. The buildings, which are in the 9-acre Lake Forest Business Park, were purchased from a partnership made up of Burnham USA Equities of Newport Beach and the Lewis Cos. of Los Angeles.