Strack & Van Til will lay off 174 more workers when it closes two Ultra Foods stores in Gary and Merrillville this summer.
The Highland-based grocery chain, a beloved Region institution that may soon lose local ownership, also plans to lay off 460 workers, including 81 in Merrillville, when it closes five stores by the end of April.
The longtime local grocery chain, the largest independent grocer remaining in Northwest Indiana, made the bombshell announcement this week it would sell off 22 stores to an unnamed buyer and sell off nine discount Ultra Fresh Foods, including the Lansing store it just pumped millions into, because the new owner didn't want them.
The full extent of the layoffs is not yet known, but appears likely to exceed 1,000 workers in Northwest Indiana and the Chicago suburbs in Illinois.
Strack & Van Til filed a WARN notice with the state of Indiana that it would lay off 98 workers, including clerks, deli clerks and bakery clerks, at its Ultra store at 6010 W. Ridge Road in Gary by June 17. It also warned the state it was laying off an additional 76 workers at its Merrill Point store at 9111 Taft Street in Merrillville.
Head meat cutters, assistant meat managers, journeymen and seafood leaders are the only workers with bumping rights to other stores. The United Food and Commercial Workers union out of Illinois represents most of the affected workers.
A UFCW Local 1546 representative declined to comment.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union Local 703 is suing Strack & Van Til parent company Central Grocers Inc. to stop it from selling all or parts of itself, saying it has received no assurances that a labor contract protecting 300 warehouse workers in Joliet would be recognized by the yet-unidentified new owner if a sale goes through.
A spokesman with a New York City-based public relations firm for the Joliet-based cooperative, a $2 billion company that counts Strack & Van Til as its largest customer, declined to comment.
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