LABOR

Arbitrator Rules Against Thrifty Pharmacists: An unfair-labor practices complaint filed against Thrifty PayLess Inc. by three union locals representing about 800 pharmacists in Southern California has been rejected. Three locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union challenged the drugstore chain’s right to put non-union managers in charge of the pharmacies at many of its 317 stores in Southern California. The National Labor Relations Board initially sided with the union--contending that the company’s practice cost union pharmacists overtime and led to the imposition of “more onerous work assignments”--but the arbitrator overruled that finding.