3 MARKETS, UNION RETURN TO THE TABLE BLACKOUT IMPOSED ON TALKS.

Byline: Nicholas Grudin Staff Writer

Both sides in the monthlong supermarket strike grudgingly returned to the bargaining table Monday with tepid hopes that the nation's top federal mediator could find common ground.

As the strike enters its 31st day today, United Food and Commercial Workers clerks from Vons, Albertson's and Ralphs have been left in the lurch while their bosses and union leaders meet behind closed doors.

Although picket lines remain robust and parking lots empty, there is growing impatience among striking workers who feel a greater sense of urgency as the holidays approach. According to economic analysts, the 70,000 UFCW employees are losing $6.4 million a day in wages, despite weekly $200 compensation checks from the union.

``We don't want to be out here for the holidays - we're hoping to be back to work before Thanksgiving,'' said Vivian Krager, a 25-year Vons employee, as she marched at a Santa Clarita Pavilions on Monday with about two dozen others. ``My husband also works for Vons, so we're out two incomes.''

``I've got two little ones who I have to buy Christmas presents for, so believe me, there's urgency, but I also don't want to work with a lousy contract,'' said Kristy Herbert, a single mother who held signs alongside her two young daughters.

Although the attention of the hurting employees and millions of inconvenienced shoppers is firmly fixed on the federal mediation, very little has been revealed about the meeting that was organized by Peter J. Hurtgen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

The location of the meeting has not been disclosed and a media blackout was declared for the duration of the negotiations.

``We will have a statement at some point when events warrant,'' said John Arnold, a spokesman for the FMCS.

As such, union employees are in the dark about their immediate future.

``We're trying to stay positive, but we've been told not to get our hopes up,'' Herbert said, as she paused from her routine in front of Pavilions.

UFCW officials said that reaching a resolution with the headstrong supermarkets is unlikely so soon after the chief executive of Vons' parent company Safeway Inc., Steve Burd, asserted that the employers would not back off their last offer.

Supermarket official have declined to comment since the federal mediation was announced Friday.

One sign of hope is that the FMCS was successful in solving a smaller and shorter supermarket labor dispute in St. Louis on Oct. 31, but experts say that negotiation was less complex. It lasted 25 days.

The Southern California contract dispute is considered more difficult, since it will be viewed as a model for similar situations that are brewing throughout the nation, from Portland, Ore., to West Virginia.

``People are watching and waiting to see what happens here because this is a testing ground to see if people who have fully-paid health care benefits can continue to keep them,'' said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

The strike began Oct. 11, after a last-ditch federal mediation broke down because the two sides could not agree on a litany of issues, from a proposed two-tier compensation system to cuts to medical benefits.

Workers struck Vons, and the next day Ralphs and Albertson's locked out their union employees.

Supermarket officials have argued that unless they reform their benefits package, they will not stay afloat in the increasingly competitive Southern California grocery market, where Wal-Mart is planning to build 50 new grocery stores in the next five years.

Union leaders say that the employers are demanding drastic cuts that would transform the clerk profession from a middle class job into a minimum wage position.

Nicholas Grudin, [phone]

nicholas.grudin(at)dailynews.com