Ralphs Sees Crush of Customers

It was more of the same for Vons, Albertsons and Ralphs stores on Sunday.

For Ralphs, that was a good thing.

Customers have been streaming into the Southland’s largest chain since Friday, when the grocery workers’ union pulled pickets and redeployed them to bolster lines at Vons and Albertsons markets.

As the Southland’s supermarket strike entered its fourth week, it was clear shoppers were ready to get back to normal.

Sales at the region’s 300 Ralphs stores were higher than usual for a weekend in November, said spokesman Terry O’Neil, who declined to be more specific.

“As you can imagine, it has been very good,” he said.

Although Ralphs shoppers did not face pickets, they did encounter crowded aisles and spot shortages of meat, produce and grocery items. Customers said dairy cases in some stores were sparse.

“The eggs were so picked over, I didn’t bother with them,” shopper Susan Sandoval said as she left a Ralphs store in Pasadena.

Sandoval, a regular Ralphs shopper, spent $200 on groceries Sunday and said she was glad the pickets were gone. “It was intimidating,” she said.

The United Food and Commercial Workers went on strike against Safeway Inc., the owner of Vons and Pavilions, on Oct. 11. In a show of corporate solidarity, Kroger Co., which owns Ralphs, and Albertson Inc. locked out their workers the next morning. In all, about 70,000 workers at 859 stores have been affected.

The pickets were withdrawn from Ralphs stores and consolidated at the two remaining chains because the union said it wanted to give increasingly frustrated consumers another place to shop. The three chains, which have agreed to stand firm and bargain jointly, said the union was out to divide them.

A key dispute in the strike is the chains’ demand that union workers start paying for part of their health insurance. The supermarket owners say they must find a way to lower what they pay for health benefits to compete with nonunion mass merchandisers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Union representatives said Sunday that larger picket lines at Albertsons and Vons kept customers away from those stores. Barbara Maynard, spokeswoman for UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles, said customer traffic at various Vons and Albertsons stores fell 5% to 10%.

“It is seriously impacting them,” she said.

Representatives of Vons and Albertsons couldn’t be reached for comment.

At a Ralphs in La Crescenta, the store seemed able to handle a crush of customers without problems.

“When the pickets were here, we only had three check stands going,” said Ashley Roide, 18, a temporary bagger. “Now we have all nine check stands going, and people are still waiting in line.”

“It’s a lot more work because we still have the same number of people working here,” added Roide, a freshman at Cal Poly Pomona. “I’m just glad customers are understanding -- I had to handle food stamps for the first time and it took awhile because I had never done it.”

Ralphs spokesman O’Neil said the chain was busy restocking the stores and that customers could expect to see shelves replenished within the week. He said the chain was still hiring experienced butchers, but that other positions had been filled.

Although many shoppers flocked to Ralphs, others chose to cross picket lines Sunday. Darlene Morgan said she had honored the pickets until Sunday, when she returned to a Vons store in Arcadia. As she left the supermarket, a picket called after her: “Do you have any change? My baby needs formula.”

Morgan said she supported the strike by shopping at organic food stores, “but they were too expensive,” she said. “Now I am out of groceries and I have to come here.”

Harold Zechner, an auto mechanic from Pasadena, said he decided to shop at a nearby Albertsons after a radio report said the chain was being hit hard by the strike. Zechner said the union’s demands were unrealistic and would drive up food prices.

“If they get what they want, the costs will be passed on to the next guy on the food chain -- you and me,” he said.

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Staff writer John Corrigan contributed to this report.