Supermarket Contract Talks Suddenly Sour : Labor: Union officials say a strike is now likely. Retail clerks and meat cutters would walk out at major chains from San Diego to Bakersfield.

Pressure by both sides heightened Tuesday in the Southern California supermarket labor dispute after negotiations soured.

Officials of 10 locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, representing 73,000 retail clerks and 7,000 meat cutters from San Diego to Bakersfield, scheduled membership meetings throughout the Southland today 8/1 and Thursday.

Union officials said workers would vote on whatever offer negotiators for six major supermarket chains were willing to make by late Tuesday night or early today. Rejection of the offer would set the stage for a strike at 800 markets as early as midnight Thursday, labor leaders warned.

“A strike is likely . . . all the ducks are lined up,” said union spokesman Bob Bleiweiss, who only two days ago was downplaying the immediate possibility of a strike.

Friction developed Monday when negotiators for the markets--Ralphs, Vons, Albertson’s, Alpha Beta, Lucky, and Stater Bros.--rejected revised proposals from the union. David Willauer, a spokesman for the Food Employers Council, which represents the six chains, called the union proposals “incredibly unjustified.”

The union then demanded that the markets present a revised contract offer by Tuesday afternoon. The markets agreed and it was expected that bargaining on that offer would continue through the night. Presidents of the 10 union locals will then recommend to workers that they either accept or reject the contract.

There were some indications that for all the rhetoric that swirled Tuesday, neither the supermarkets nor customers seemed to be anticipating a strike.

Thomas G. Hill, senior vice president for Orchids CQ Paper Products in La Palma, said supermarkets normally buy about two weeks’ worth of extra inventory when they expect an extended walkout.

This time, he said, there has been no such buying.

“We have had no indication at all they they (grocers) are gearing up for a tough fight,” said Hill, whose firm supplies such products as toilet paper, napkins and paper towels to all of the major supermarket chains in Southern California.

Likewise, at a Ralphs store in Fountain Valley, there has been no panic buying, said Timothy Garry, an assistant manager. He said there has been only a slight increase in sales of toilet paper, bottled water and other household staples.

“It’s not like it was three years ago,” Garry said, referring to down-to-the-wire negotiations on the last retail clerks contract in 1987, which concluded with 10-hour strikes by two locals.

The 1987 contract expired Sunday night. Union officials, who had been authorized last week by their members to call a strike, agreed to temporarily work under the lapsed contract and keep negotiating.

Wages do not appear to be a prime issue in the dispute. The markets have offered undisclosed increases in hourly wages over the next three years. Issues of health benefits and job security are more difficult to resolve, sources said. Included are questions such as more guaranteed hours for part-time workers, reduced pension contributions for entry-level clerks and increased use of non-union vendors.

Supermarket clerks now earn wages of between $4 and $13.05 an hour. Meat cutters earn from $9.31 to $14.33 an hour.

At union halls, staff members and workers spent the day making picket signs, affixing bumper stickers with the names of various targeted markets on the placards.

“If their best and final offer isn’t any better, I don’t see how we can recommend it to the membership,” said Tom Vandeveld, president of UFCW Local 135, which has about 12,000 members in San Diego and Imperial counties.

Times staff writers Gilbert Reza and Stuart Silverstein contributed to this story.