(The Desert Sun posted the following story by Jim Sams on its website on October 15.)
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — The head of Southern California’s Teamsters said Tuesday he may authorize striking grocery clerks to picket distribution warehouses throughout the region, a move that could cut supply lines for 22 supermarkets in the Coachella Valley.
Teamsters Joint Council 42 President Jim Santangelo said leaders of his local chapters have been pressuring him to authorize the pickets as a show of solidarity, even though 5,800 Teamster truck drivers and loaders would be put out of work until the strike is over.
“Of all these thousands of Teamsters that may not have work, they don’t care about that,” Santangelo said. “They care about if that union is beat up bad, they are next.”
Santangelo represents 23 union chapters, with 200,000 members, in four states.
The United Food and Commercial Workers — not the Teamsters — began striking Saturday against Vons and Pavilions stores in Southern California. That prompted Albertsons and Ralphs, which are covered under the same contract, to lock out union workers at their stores. In the valley, 22 grocery stores are affected.
Today, the fifth day of the strike-lockout, 70,000 supermarket employees remained off the job in Southern California. The two sides have not resumed talks.
Employees are outraged over the supermarkets’ latest contract proposals, including cutting pension benefits, abolishing Sunday premium pay and requiring workers to pay more for health benefits. Employers say those cuts are necessary for them to stay competitive
Santangelo said he will meet with local chapter presidents today and may decide shortly afterward to authorize the grocery clerks’ union to picket 10 Vons, Albertsons and Ralphs distribution warehouses in Riverside, Los Angeles, Carson, El Monte, Santa Fe Springs, Ontario and Alta Loma.
Santangelo said even though the Teamsters are not directly involved in the grocery clerks’ strike, they are watching closely because the Teamsters’ contract with Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons expires in 2005. He said his union members fear the grocery-store chains will try to cut their benefits next.
Spokesmen for Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons could not be reached for comment on the proposed Teamsters action late Tuesday.
A spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers called the development “wonderful news.”
“We are on the outside of the stores asking people to shop elsewhere,” said UCFW spokesman Bob Bleiweiss. “If they go in and there’s no food, that’s the best of all worlds, isn’t it?”
Teamsters members have been refusing to drive their trucks across picket lines at grocery stores, forcing store managers or replacement workers to back the trucks up to loading docks. The supermarket chains would have to hire replacement drivers for the entire route if the grocery clerks picket the warehouses and the Teamsters refuse to cross those lines.
And the presence of replacement drivers could incite violence, said economics professor Jonathan Leonard of the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
“At a minimum, rocks get thrown through windows at that point,” Leonard said.
He said participation by the Teamsters would also increase pressure on employers to reopen negotiations with the strikers. He said goods would start stacking up in warehouses, leaving grocery store shelves empty.
“The milk and eggs and the fruit and vegetables, they sell out and they start to have real trouble,” Leonard said. “Then you’ve got stuff sitting in the warehouses that starts to rot.”
Meanwhile, a strike by train and bus mechanics that began Tuesday stranded hundreds of thousands of Southern California commuters.
The strike against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stalled the nation’s third-largest mass-transit system.
(The Los Angeles Daily News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.)