Skepticism greets promised talks

Alicia Robinson

New talks in the grocery store labor dispute are scheduled to begin

Wednesday, possibly ending the stalemate as it reaches the four-month

mark. But local workers said they’re not getting their hopes too

high.

Federal mediator Peter J. Hurtgen announced Monday that

negotiations would resume Wednesday between the United Food and

Commercial Workers union and grocery chains Kroger, Albertsons and

Safeway. John Arnold, a spokesman for Hurtgen’s office, declined to

say when or where talks will be held.

“Everybody’s agreed to come back, and it’s a pretty positive sign

from our perspective,” Arnold said.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Steve Vass, who worked as a

nighttime stocker at the Ralphs on 17th Street. Vass returned to the

picket line at his store Saturday after picketing at Vons down the

street for weeks.

Vass said last week that he was glad that the union’s request for

binding arbitration was bringing the workers’ side of the issue to

the public. On Monday, he said that the companies’ rejection of

arbitration showed they didn’t really care about the employees, so

was still skeptical that anything would come of the new talks.

Talks already have broken off several times with no movement by

either side, including a meeting in January that was kept secret from

the press.

Striking and locked-out workers said they were wary partly because

they’d hear so many rumors. Rudy Miramontes, a crew chief at the 17th

Street Vons, said he’d heard that talks started Monday.

Union representatives told workers that the contract dispute would

be resolved in two weeks, Miramontes said.

“I don’t believe it because sometimes they’re all rumors, so we’ll

see what happens next week,” he said. “We’re not totally sure about

it, because we still have to vote on [a contract].”

Mikela Ostaszewski, a cashier at the 17th Street Ralphs for 31

years, was sad to be back on the picket lines at her own store, where

she’d been since Jan. 31.

She arrived on the lines Monday afternoon from her new job at

Longs Drugstore down the street, but she planned to return to Ralphs

as soon as the lockout ended, she said.

The agreement to resume negotiations was a result of pressure on

the stores from bad publicity over protests, the union’s request for

arbitration, and lawsuits alleging Ralphs illegally rehired workers,

Ostaszewski said.

The new talks were a good sign, because talking is better than

nothing, she said.

“My idea in the beginning was they should all be locked in a room

from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day,” she said.