Lucky Stores’ Offer Turned Down by Teamsters : Labor: Action increases chance of strike by those who supply 235 Southland supermarkets. Contract expires today, and talks continue.

Teamsters members Sunday unanimously rejected the latest contract offer by Lucky Stores Inc., the union reported, increasing the chance of a strike by 1,695 workers who warehouse and deliver goods to 235 Lucky supermarkets throughout Southern California.

However, at the behest of a federal mediator, both sides continued to meet late Sunday, and Teamsters leaders told their members to report to work as usual today.

The contract between Lucky and Teamsters Local 952 expired today at 12:01 a.m., and union leaders left open the possibility that they could call a strike any time after that. Other possibilities are a boycott of Lucky without a work stoppage, or an extension of the current contract until a new agreement is reached--a step usually taken when a settlement appears imminent.

But on Sunday, the two sides were still far apart.

“There’s been very, very, very little headway,” Ed Mireles, head of Teamsters Local 952, said in an interview as hundreds of Lucky workers jammed into the union hall in Orange to cast their votes on the contract offer.

“There’s nothing with substance,” Mireles said of the latest offer, which came after more than 20 hours of talks that began Friday afternoon.

Judy Decker, a Lucky spokeswoman, said: “There’s been some movement on the company’s side, I don’t know about the union side.”

She remained hopeful Sunday afternoon that a settlement could be reached, saying, “They’re making some progress, that’s why they’re talking again.”

The Teamsters and Lucky, the No. 2 supermarket chain in the Southland, have not been wrangling over wages and benefits.

Rather, the two sides have been deadlocked since the talks started in mid-July over the company’s ability to move distribution and warehouse work out of Orange County.

For many years, Lucky operated distribution centers in Buena Park, Irvine and Fullerton, whose workers are represented by Teamsters Local 952, to service all of Lucky’s Southern California stores and 20 in Nevada.

But earlier this summer, Lucky opened a warehouse in Fontana, and soon after that the company shifted liquor products there from its warehouse in Buena Park. Lucky workers in Fontana are represented by a separate Teamsters local and they make $4.60 an hour less than comparable workers in Orange County, whose hourly pay is about $16.60.

Lucky has said it needs the flexibility to move work among its Southern California warehouses to operate efficiently.

But Teamsters Local 952 says the shift in liquor products will cost at least 22 of its members their jobs, and moreover, threatens the long-term job security of its members because Lucky could move additional work to Fontana or other lower-wage warehouses.

Neither side disclosed details of Lucky’s offer that was voted down on Sunday, but Mireles of the Teamsters said it was well short of the union’s goal of obtaining clear language that would preserve jobs for his members. Mireles said other issues were likely to fall into place once the dispute over job security was resolved.

While there were no signs Sunday of an immediate strike, Lucky workers said they would not hesitate to walk out. Many of the workers attending the union meeting Sunday pumped their fists in the air and broke into applause when the Teamsters leaders urged them to reject the latest offer.

“If we don’t take a stand now, we could be gone 10 years from now,” said Don Brewster, a union steward at Lucky’s warehouse in Irvine.

Over the weekend, Teamsters Local 952 ironed out a separate agreement with Albertson’s, leaving only Lucky among the major supermarket chains in the region without a settlement.

According to the Teamsters, all of the other big food chains agreed to the job-security language that the union is seeking from Lucky.

Lucky officials said it did not matter what the other companies had agreed to, because each supermarket chain was negotiating a separate contract this year, whereas in the past the major food companies, as a group, negotiated a single contract with the Teamsters.