Grocery strike is spreading

LOS ANGELES — With no sign of a labor contract compromise on the horizon, three supermarket chains and their striking Southern California grocery clerks dug in Monday for a protracted walkout as grocery workers in other states also voted to strike.

For the second full day, thousands of striking workers picketed markets from Santa Barbara to San Diego and slowed the flow of goods to hundreds of stores. Workers vowed not to return to work until they received a contract with health benefits they could approve.

Meanwhile, a contract dispute over health-care benefits also led more than 3,000 Kroger grocery clerks in West Virginia and others in a handful of stores in Ohio and Kentucky to vote to strike Monday.

"What happens in Southern California will shape what happens in other areas," said Greg Denier, spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers national office. "Southern California is leading the nation in this fight."

To manage, the Southern California chains — Kroger Co.'s Ralphs, Safeway Inc.'s Vons and Albertsons Inc. — relied on store managers and replacement workers to drive supply trucks, restock shelves and ring up purchases to keep the nearly 900 stores open for a diminished flow of customers.

One of Kroger's Utah brands, Smith's Food & Drug Stores, has dispatched about 50 workers to help keep the California stores open.

But no strikes have been threatened in Utah, said Smith's spokeswoman Marsha Gilford. Its union-affiliated workers are on a different contract negotiation schedule than the affected Kroger stores.

"We do have many employees who are under a bargaining contract," Gilford said. "But it's a completely separate agreement than the California one. The unions are completely separate as well, and we're on a different contract negotiating schedule. We're nowhere near ready to negotiate the contracts here."

Representatives of Fred Meyer, Kroger's other division with operations in Utah, did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment.

Officials on both sides did not expect labor contract negotiations, which stalled on the issue of how much workers should contribute to fund their health benefits, to restart in the immediate future.

"They are fighting for their future, they are fighting for their jobs," said Greg Conger, president of the UFCW Local 324 in Buena Park.