Supermarket strike continues in Southern California

T.O. Acorn Editor


MICHAEL COONS/The Acorn  ON STRIKE-Albertsons employees (left to right) Behnam Nikbakhsh, Mike Hamlin and Robert Daniel are picketing outside the supermarket in Westlake Village. Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons employees are on strike because their benefits are in jeopardy. The strike began on Saturday.

MICHAEL COONS/The Acorn ON STRIKE-Albertsons employees (left to right) Behnam Nikbakhsh, Mike Hamlin and Robert Daniel are picketing outside the supermarket in Westlake Village. Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons employees are on strike because their benefits are in jeopardy. The strike began on Saturday.

Grocery store workers continued their strike against Southern California supermarkets Wednesday, and locally, shelves emptied rapidly as the non-union stores struggled to keep goods in stock.


One picketer was struck by a delivery truck at the Vons market in Agoura Hills, causing tears and angry words.


"It didn’t hurt me, but he just kept on moving," said the unidentified lady, who has been an employee of the store for 25 years.


Later in the evening, a sheriff’s patrol car was parked close by.


At Trader Joe’s in Thousand Oaks, the produce department was picked clean as shoppers avoided a nearby Ralphs. Two blocks away, Lassen’s market experienced a similar boom in business.


The scene was far different at the stores being struck or those where management had locked employees out. At Albertsons on Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas, only a smattering of shoppers walked down the aisles while in the parking lot the picketers hoisted signs to keep cars at bay. The meat department offered limited choices and the prices on some items were being reduced.


About 70,000 United Food and Commercial Workers union employees have been off the job since Saturday in a stalemate over wages and benefits. The union struck Safeway Inc.’s Vons and Pavilions stores and the management at Kroger Co.’s Albertsons and Ralphs locked their employees out in sympathy.


The strike affects 860 stores from the Mexican border to Mono County. As of yesterday, no progress in the strike had been reported.


Businesses adjacent to the grocery stores were being affected, too. Kameron Pezeshki, who works at a cellular phone store close to Albertsons at the Thousand Oaks Oakbrook Plaza, said his business was down about 30 percent on Tuesday. It followed another slow day Monday when a nearby DMV office was closed for Columbus Day.


But a Long’s drugstore in the area was enjoying incredible business. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, long lines were forming at all four cash registers.


Gail Cortese, a Thousand Oaks resident, did her shopping earlier in the week once she heard the strike was underway. Tuesday morning found her shopping at Trader Joe’s, but only for certain specialty items that she couldn’t find at the main stores.


"I hope it ends fast," Cortese said when asked about the strike.


Cheryl Anderson of Thousand Oaks came to Trader Joe’s to shop for specialty foods also, but said she would visit at Ralphs later in the day to buy baby food for her daughter.


"I’m not real keen on unions," Anderson said. "I understand that people need to make their money, but when it gets everybody involved I’m not sure it’s a good thing."


Picketers are working the Agoura Hills Vons in shifts.


One deli employee who asked not to be identified said she was upset that people think the striking workers are fighting for higher wages.


"Everything they’re saying about how we want more pay is not true," the lady said. "They want to cut our medical benefits by 50 percent. I’m a single mother with a three-year-old."


One customer, Karen Stocking of Agoura Hills, said she’s not bothered by the picketers.


"All I’m doing is walking by them," she said. "I think they should be appreciative that they have a job."



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *