NORTH COUNTY -- Federal agents reportedly began interviewing North County employees of Ralphs supermarkets last week as part of an inquiry by the U.S. attorney's office into the use of false Social Security numbers, sources said Friday.

The local interviews came two days after similar interviews were conducted in the Los Angeles area.

Calls to Ralphs for comment were not returned, and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles said he could "neither confirm nor deny" the existence of the probe, which follows by several weeks the filing of two civil suits -- one of them under the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization statute -- against Ralphs by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The suits allege that the grocery chain relied on locked-out union members to help solve staffing problems and that the locked-out workers were hired under fictitious names and bogus Social Security numbers.

The U.S. attorney's inquiry and a parallel investigation by the National Labor Relations Board exemplify the degree to which the Southern California grocery clerks strike and lockout have been transformed from contract negotiation to bitter feud -- a feud that is taking on a life of its own with consequences that could be felt long after the labor dispute is resolved.

Impact on chains unclear

It remains unclear how susceptible the three supermarket chains -- Vons, the Southern California presence of Safeway Inc.; Ralphs, a division of Kroger Co.; and Albertson's -- are to negative publicity. When the UFCW decided to strike after contract talks broke down Oct. 11, it struck only Vons, hoping to split the chains apart. The other two locked out their UFCW employees the next day.

Three weeks later, picket lines were withdrawn from Ralphs stores, again in an attempt to split the chains. That has not happened, but the federal investigation and its attendant publicity could put additional pressure on Kroger to take a second look at its solidarity with Vons.

Mediated talks between the two sides in the dispute have been in recess since before Christmas. By the time they resume, possibly late this week, the work stoppage will have entered its fifth month.

Talks or no talks, pressure or no pressure, it does not seem that resolution of the labor dispute is nigh.

"With every negotiating session we have offered them more money, so it stands to reason they want to continue that process," said Ellen Anreder, spokeswoman for five of the seven union locals involved in the work stoppage.

"We will not do that any longer," she said.

Mickey Kasparian, the president of San Diego UFCW Local 135, said last week that his union still has "months" of strike fund left, although it is being doled out far more parsimoniously than it was when the strike and walkout began -- $100 maximum weekly benefit instead of $300.

The supermarkets, by all accounts, have lost between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in Southern California sales the last four months, but the red ink is not as threatening as it might seem. Kroger and Albertson's have issued quarterly reports that show they remain profitable. Safeway's last quarter ends Thursday, so the strike's impact on its finances will soon be known.

It is worth noting that Vons is Safeway's largest operating division, so the impact could be more substantial than it has been on the other chains. Any difference in the impact on the three companies was supposed to be resolved through a revenue-sharing agreement that was written to ensure that there would be no change in market share as a result of the strike, but that agreement is the subject of an antitrust suit by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. If Lockyer's bid for a restraining order is successful, the agreement may never be implemented, and that could heavily impact Safeway.

A union bid Wednesday to move the labor dispute into binding arbitration was promptly rejected by the supermarket chains, which sought an immediate call to the negotiating table from the federal mediator. Both sides seem willing, but they don't seem to be able to agree on the most basic elements of the talks: when and where.

New talks' merits dubious

Union spokeswoman Anreder said she doesn't expect to see anything new from the supermarkets in a new round of talks, despite claims made by supermarket negotiators in a letter to the union that they had proposed concessions at a private meeting three weeks ago in Denver.

"It's a blatant lie," Anreder said of the claimed concessions.

"The last formal proposal we received from them was on Dec. 2, and the last one we gave them was Dec. 19," she said.

"The only thing that happened in Denver was informal talks -- there weren't even any notes taken," she said.

"They were what (Local 324 President) Greg Conger calls 'supposals'," she said. "Suppose we do this, suppose you do that."

Spokesmen for the chains decline to discuss negotiations, but Anreder says that's because "they have deep pockets, and they're just hiding in their pockets."

Ahead this week

Regardless of whether talks resume, the picket lines go on, and the union has scheduled a "mass rally and march" at the Ralphs at 125 E. El Camino Real in Encinitas between 4 and 6 p.m. Wednesday.

At 11 a.m. Wednesday, a "strikers' prayer vigil" is set for Ejercito de Oracion Iglesia Apostolica at 997 N. Escondido Blvd. in Escondido.

Contact staff writer Edmond Jacoby at (760) 739-6675 or ejacoby@nctimes.com.