240 Lucky Jobs to Be Eliminated in Consolidation

Lucky Stores said Friday that it will eliminate 240 office jobs in Buena Park and San Leandro in Northern California and combine the two divisions into one, based in Phoenix.

The move will affect employees in the company’s accounting, payroll, personnel, information systems and office services departments. The employees, 135 of them in Buena Park, were notified Friday, said company spokeswoman Judith A. Decker.

Lucky’s parent, American Stores Co. of Salt Lake City, is negotiating with unions representing the employees about whether they will receive first preference for jobs at the Phoenix facility, among other issues, Decker said. The transfer of operations should take place within the next eight to 10 months.

The move is being made to streamline administrative operations, Decker said, although the exact dollar savings is undetermined. Lucky is one of the three biggest players in the competitive Southland grocery industry, with 408 stores in California and 20 stores in the Las Vegas area.

“While this is a difficult decision to make, the consolidation of these staff functions in the two divisional offices will allow Lucky to gain economies of scale and streamline reporting,” Lawrence A. Del Santo, chairman and chief executive officer of Lucky Stores, said in a prepared statement.

The Phoenix location is the site of a former Gemco store that American Stores owned before selling the chain to Minneapolis-based Dayton-Hudson, which converted the locations into Target stores. American Stores held onto the Phoenix site, however, and is also bringing to the same building office jobs from an 11-store chain, Jewel Osco, it owns in New Mexico.

“The company has the potential to put other similar operations at this site in the future,” Decker said.

American Stores also owns Osco Drug Inc. and Sav-On Drugs Inc. in California, and Star Markets in the New England area and Acme Markets in the Pennsylvania area.