A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has returned a 53-count indictment against Ralphs Grocery Company, alleging that the company secretly rehired hundreds of locked-out employees under false names and false social security numbers during the 2003-2004 grocery workers labor dispute.

The indictment alleges that Ralphs required rehired locked-out employees to work under false identities to hide its activities from labor unions, the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the National Labor Relations Board.

According to the indictment, Ralphs falsified thousands of employment records, including forms filed with government agencies such as employment eligibility forms (INS Forms I-9), employee withholding allowance certificates (IRS Forms W-4), and income tax statements (IRS Forms W-2).

In addition, prosecutors allege that Ralphs issued thousands of weekly payroll checks under the false names used by rehired workers, and then allowed these workers to cash their paychecks at Ralphs stores as means of concealing and promoting the ongoing use of false identities.

According to the indictment, Ralphs engaged in illegal conduct throughout its lockout of approximately 19,000 grocery clerks and meat cutters employed at its Southern California stores, a lockout that lasted from October 12, 2003 to March 1, 2004.

Prosecutors allege that Ralphs took numerous steps to conceal its rehiring of locked-out employees, including assigning those employees to stores far from their normal workplaces, moving them from store to store, and requiring them to wear name tags bearing their false names.

The indictment alleges that Ralphs' actions were the result of "tacit approval, if not encouragement, by Ralphs' senior management to hire locked-out and striking employees as temporary replacement workers."

In a statement, the company said it has previously acknowledged that during the 141-day grocery strike, a number of its store managers violated explicit company policy by rehiring striking workers and allowing them to work under false names and/or false Social Security numbers. The company said it has taken disciplinary action against the managers involved.

"We strongly dispute the claim that the behavior of some store managers reflected a corporate plan devised to further the company's position during the prolonged labor negotiations," said Paul Heldman, a senior vice president at Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs. "The federal prosecutors simply have this wrong. Ralphs hired more than 50,000 temporary workers during the strike and we believe less than 1 percent or about 200 of them were locked out employees who were rehired unlawfully. We regret that misconduct, but it had no effect whatsoever on the duration or outcome of the labor dispute."