Striking Truckers, Tortilla Firm Meeting With D.A.

Security guards and unionized tortilla truck drivers have taken their dispute off the freeways and into the office of Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti.

Officials and attorneys from the Guerrero Mexican Food Products company met with Garcetti on Thursday. Representatives from Teamsters Local 63 plan to meet with him today to discuss an alleged incident of harassment that stems from a 26-day truckers’ strike, a district attorney spokeswoman said.

California Highway Patrol officers on Wednesday intervened in two separate altercations between California Security Co. guards and striking Guerrero truck drivers on the San Bernardino (10) and Pomona (60) freeways, in which one group allegedly doused the other with pepper spray while both parties were driving.

Officers initially arrested six truck drivers on assault charges, but released them when a videotape revealed that it may have been the security guards who initiated the attack, Officer Louis Gutierrez said.

Garcetti would not comment on Thursday’s meeting with Guerrero officials, but he said he agreed to the meetings to hear both sides of the case, said Elka Worner, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

Today’s meeting with union representatives will precede a rally outside the Los Angeles Criminal Courts Building by truck drivers and Teamsters officials who are demanding that authorities press charges against the security guards, union officials said.

CHP officers have made no further arrests in the case, Gutierrez said.

Demanding better wages and pension plans from the parent company, Gruma USA, at least 160 Guerrero tortilla delivery truck drivers began a strike on Aug. 4, when their contracts expired. They have held several protests and rallies, wielding signs and taping a line through the Guerrero logo on the back of their operator-owned trucks.