Lucky, Union Deadlocked as Strike Looms : Labor: Negotiations continue in Orange against a Sunday deadline. Teamsters could walk out against 235-store chain.

ORANGE —  Working against a Sunday night deadline, negotiators for the Teamsters union and Lucky Stores Friday remained locked in a contract dispute centering on job security for workers who warehouse and deliver goods to 235 Lucky supermarkets across Southern California.

Teamsters leaders say their 1,695 members could strike as early as 12:01 a.m. Monday, when the existing labor contract expires. Other possibilities, union officials said, are a boycott of Lucky, which is the region’s No. 2 supermarket chain, or an extension of the current contract until a new agreement is reached.

But the union said it is unwilling to bend on job security, the issue in dispute, and both the company and the Teamsters continued to make preparations in case of a strike.

About 75 leaders of Teamsters and other food industry unions across the state converged Friday in Orange County, where Lucky’s three main warehouses are based, in a show of solidarity.

“We have had dialogue, but we’re still far apart,” said Ed Mireles, head of Teamsters Local 952 in Orange.

Lucky Stores spokeswoman Judy Decker said the company, a unit of American Stores Co. of Salt Lake City, remained hopeful. “We want a solution,” she said.

At the same time, however, Lucky employees at the company’s three Orange County warehouses were assigned to work overtime Friday, as they have in the past week, setting aside extra pallets of food for easy delivery in the event of a strike. Union members, however, said they have slowed down the pace of work in protest.

Lucky said it also has a contingent of replacement workers on standby.

The company’s contract dispute with the Teamsters focuses on the company’s ability to move distribution and warehouse work in Orange County elsewhere. For many years, Lucky operated three distribution centers--in Buena Park, Irvine and Fullerton--to service all of its Southern California stores and 20 in Nevada.

But earlier this summer, Lucky opened a fourth warehouse in Fontana, and soon after that the company shifted liquor products there from its facility in Buena Park. Lucky workers in Fontana have a separate contract with the company and make $4.60 an hour less than those in Orange County, whose hourly pay is about $16.60.

Lucky says it needs the flexibility to move work among its Southern California warehouses to operate efficiently. But Teamsters officials say the shift in liquor products will cost at least 22 of its members their jobs and, moreover, threatens the long-term job security of its members.

The Teamsters have not struck a big grocery chain in Southern California since 1985, when the union walked out at Vons in what turned out to be an eight-week strike. But workers at Lucky warehouses Friday were bracing for the worst.

“Everybody I’ve talked to here is trying to line up temporary jobs just in case,” said one 12-year employee at Lucky’s warehouse in Irvine.