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The pickets were withdrawn from Ralphs stores and consolidated at the two remaining chains because the union said it wanted to give increasingly frustrated consumers another place to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.
