Chances of supermarket strike climb

Prospects for another Southern California supermarket strike grew Wednesday as talks broke off between three major chains and the union representing grocery workers.

Union leaders walked away from negotiations after learning that Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons had agreed to lock out employees if any of the supermarkets becomes a strike target.

No date was set for resumption of talks.

The union warned that the grocers were pushing the dispute into a repeat of the 4 1/2 -month strike and lockout of 2003-04, which sent frustrated shoppers to other supermarkets in Southern and Central California.

“From our perspective, it’s as if they want to go to war,” said Rick Icaza, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770.

But Supervalu Inc.’s Albertsons, Kroger Co.’s Ralphs and Safeway Inc.’s Vons called the pact a “defensive measure” after Albertsons union employees voted March 25 to authorize a strike.

“It will restore balance to the negotiating table,” said Adina Tessler of Rogers Group, a Century City public relations firm hired by the grocers. Tessler said the companies were still interested in bargaining with the union and reaching a mutually beneficial contract that would affect an estimated 65,000 employees.

The current labor contract was signed in 2004 after the union agreed to numerous wage and benefit concessions that led to the creation of a second tier of workers with lower pay and benefits.

Hoping to avoid more concessions, the local unions -- all members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union -- decided to negotiate individually with each grocer this time around, instead of bargaining with the employers as a group.

Despite the change in tactics, the contract expired March 5 and was then extended to next Monday.

Daily extensions of the contract will begin after that -- unless one of the sides asks for a cancellation. The contract will expire 72 hours after a cancellation is requested. The earliest a strike or lockout could occur would be 12:01 a.m. April 13.

But don’t stock up on canned goods just yet: Walking away from the table is a commonly used tactic in labor negotiations, said William Gould, a labor law professor at Stanford University and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.

Both sides know that scrapping the agreement could be costly, he said. The 2003-04 strike cost the chains $2 billion, according to some estimates, and forced thousands of grocery workers to quit the business.

“Given the long, drawn-out difficulties they had last time around, I think they would be more likely to exhaust bargaining machinery before they engaged in either a strike or a lockout,” Gould said.

But not everyone agrees. Other experts say that unless one of the parties has a change of heart, an agreement is unlikely.

The supermarket pact announced Wednesday and the union’s response are “clearly going to hinder the potential for an agreement,” said Dave Smith, associate professor of economics at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management. “It increases the possibility of a strike or a lockout.”

Government intervention also is a possibility, he said, but federal and state officials took a hands-off approach during the last work stoppage and are likely to do so again.

It is surprising that the grocers agreed on this so-called mutual-aid pact, Smith said, because California Atty. Gen. Edmund G. Brown Jr. is alleging in a lawsuit that a similar pact in 2003-04 violated antitrust laws.

Gareth Lacy, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said that lawsuit would go to court in January. That suit also challenged the legality of a revenue-sharing agreement that had been made between the three companies and Kroger’s Food 4 Less, he said.

Companies in other industries consent to less-formal pacts to ensure they negotiate similar labor agreements, Smith said.

That the grocery chains were willing to take this formal action indicated they believe their businesses would be threatened without it, Smith said.

Traditional grocery chains face pressure from retailers such as Target Corp. and Costco Wholesale Corp., which can sell goods for lower prices.

Tessler, the supermarkets’ spokeswoman for the negotiations, said that the pact was consumer-friendly.

“If they’re going to put pressure on one chain to accept contract terms that are not favorable, it could be damaging to all of the chains’ future,” she said of the unions.

Customers want the stores to stay open and an agreement between the grocers was the best way to reduce the effects of any potential strike losses, Tessler said.

Michael Shimpock of SG&A; Campaigns, a Pasadena media and political consulting firm hired by the United Food and Commercial Workers, scoffed at the idea that the mutual-aid pact was consumer-friendly.

“This is a step that would actively put consumers at risk and re-create the chaos of 2003-04,” he said.

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alana.semuels@latimes.com