TEAMSTERS STRIKE SAFEWAY DISTRIBUTION CENTER

ELLIOT ZWIEBACH

TRACY, Calif. -- Teamsters Local 439 here went on strike last week against the northern California distribution center that services 245 Safeway stores in northern California, Nevada and Hawaii.

The first few hours of the strike were characterized by violence outside the warehouse -- with at least two people hospitalized -- as bricks, rocks and other projectiles were tossed through the windows of vans moving temporary workers into the facility.

The objects were directed at some of the 1,400 temporary warehouse workers and 250 temporary drivers who were hired to replace approximately 1,600 members of Local 439. The replacements had been hired, trained and placed on standby by Summit Logistics, the locally based company that operates the 1.8-million-square-foot facility, whose only customer is Pleasanton, Calif.-based Safeway.

Summit Logistics is a member company of Tibbett & Britten, Toronto, a logistics company that operates distribution facilities for various retailers on a third-party basis. Its three-year contract with Local 439 expired Sept. 27.

Safeway officials held a press conference less than three hours after the strike began last week to assure customers there would be no interruption of products at the stores. Speaking with SN after the conference, Debra Lambert, a corporate spokeswoman, said Safeway has "a full contingency plan in place to supply the stores, and with replacement workers on the job, product is being shipped to the stores."

She said Safeway launched a test several weeks ago to have meat and produce shipped directly from vendors to the stores, "and it worked well." However, she said the chain returned to regular shipments from the Tracy facility two weeks ago and plans to continue to ship from there for the foreseeable future, "though we still have that contingency plan in place."

She said Safeway has not considered a similar direct delivery plan with any dry grocery vendors.

Martin Street, president of Summit Logistics, told SN it was business as usual inside the warehouse the day after the strike began. "We're working our way through the orders, and although we're a little behind, we will catch up during the day," he said.

Reflecting on the violence outside, he said two replacement workers had been hospitalized -- one who was hit by a brick and ended up with glass fragments in his head, another who was hit by a pellet gun and ended up with glass in his face and a loss of hearing in one ear. Seven other replacement workers who were hit by flying glass required stitches, Street added.

He said the police are attempting to cope with the situation, "but there have been no arrests of people throwing rocks."

Danny Beagle, a spokesman for Local 439, told SN there is no excuse for the violence. He said the union planned to move some picketers away from the warehouse to hand out leaflets at Safeway store locations "where the atmosphere is a lot calmer."

The union set up leafleting activity at 20 Safeway stores late in the week, with a goal of expanding to 40 stores over the weekend, Beagle said. The handouts ask customers to boycott Safeway "and not to condone what amounts to a sweatshop operation [at the warehouse]. Northern California is pretty much a pro-labor, progressive region, and people get what we're talking about, so we think we can be effective."

He told SN he believes the strike could have an impact on future negotiations with other retailers in the Bay Area. However, he said he doubted Local 439 would make any effort to ask teamsters at Safeway facilities in other areas to support its efforts "until we can show we have a solid strike and boycott effort here first."

In its press conference, Safeway tried to impress on consumers that any boycott of its stores would hurt its 20,000 store-level employees. "Safeway is a pro-union company," a spokeswoman told SN last week, "and any boycott of our stores in sympathy with the striking union directly threatens the jobs of our unionized employees."

The Tracy warehouse opened in 1992 to serve Safeway stores exclusively. Initially, it was managed by a company called Specialized Distribution Management, which negotiated a five-year contract with the Teamsters after a labor dispute.

When that contract expired in 1997, the warehouse was sold to Summit Logistics, which was formed by Tibbett & Britten to operate the facility. Summit negotiated a three-year agreement with the Teamsters that expired in September.

When Local 439 voted to reject Summit's final offer earlier this month, it also voted to authorize a strike.

According to Beagle, the union spokesman, the strike was initially called for 11 a.m. last Wednesday but was delayed two hours to allow the two sides to have a final conversation.

The two most important issues to the union, Beagle said, are hourly pay for drivers and better working conditions in the warehouse.

"Drivers are paid based on the number of deliveries they make, which creates tremendous pressure for drivers to push themselves and rush from delivery to delivery. Ours is the only contract in the area that does not pay drivers hourly, although Albertson's contract is kind of a hybrid that pays drivers hourly, with incentives based on the number of deliveries.

"At the warehouse, the production standards are too high -- the result of an arbitration the Teamsters lost in 1998. Those standards are difficult for members to achieve, so there's a very high turnover rate as people are fired or disciplined or they quit.

"The employer says it would cost too much to reduce the standards. We tell them they're cutting the floor out from under themselves because no one has production standards like this."

Street said Summit has offered to hire a third party, including one selected by the union, to study each driver activity but the union has declined the offer. Regarding warehouse standards, he said the contract that expired last month gave the union the right to ask that any standard be remeasured but the clause was never invoked.