Ralphs Grocery Co. pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that store managers violated federal laws by secretly rehiring nearly 1,000 locked-out workers during the bitter Southern California supermarket labor dispute of 2003-04. According to a December grand jury indictment, Ralphs used fake names and Social Security numbers and falsified thousands of employee records sent to various government agencies to conceal the rehiring of experienced workers.
See "Ralphs Pleads Not Guilty to Hiring Violations", Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2006