As the picket signs were being packed away three years ago, Georgene Haubenreisser urged the relatives she had helped steer into supermarket careers to get out of the business, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Haubenreisser herself planned to hang on until she could retire, having already put in 24 years. The matriarch of a family with 10 members who had staked out careers in Ralphs supermarket aisles, she became disillusioned with the grocery industry after the hardships of a 141-day labor dispute that ended in February 2004.

With more strife on the horizon, the Santa Clarita resident is still in debt from the last fight. But she said she would be willing to take another turn on the picket line to protect her wages and benefits, though she probably would have to put her home up for sale.

Her union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons chains have been unable to agree on a new three-year contract, leaving clerks and customers to brace for another battle.

Read the full L.A. Times story

.(registration required)