SAN DIEGO -- One of two striking supermarket workers accused of attacking a replacement worker with a baseball bat pleaded not guilty Wednesday to assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and vandalism charges.

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Hear Alleged Assaulter Deny Beating Replacement Worker

Simon Jose Thompson, 33, was ordered held in lieu of $75,000 bail.

Thompson and Charles Matthew Olvera are accused in the Friday attack on the 27-year-old replacement worker, which happened shortly after the victim left a Ralphs on East Palomar Street in Chula Vista about 1:50 a.m.

"This is not like him. It's not the way we were brought up," Thompson's sister, Veronica, said outside court. "It's impossible for me to believe."

She called on leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers to help her brother.

"I would expect the union to step up," Veronica Thompson said.

Deputy District Attorney Claudine Ruiz told Judge Esteban Hernandez that the victim was harassed by picketers and got into a verbal encounter with some of them as he left the store.

She said the defendants got into a car and followed the victim's vehicle at speeds up to 80 mph, during which time Thompson, from the passenger seat, allegedly leaned outside and hit the victim's car door with a baseball bat.

"Defendant Thompson swung the bat and hit the victim in (his) face and his eye. He was knocked to the ground by that strike," Ruiz said.

Olvera, the driver of the pursuing car, accelerated and boxed the victim's car in near a freeway onramp, Ruiz said.

The victim got out of his car to ask for the defendants' insurance information, and Thompson hit him in the head, near the eye, with a bat, the prosecutor said.

The victim got off the ground only to be hit in the chest with a bat wielded by Olvera, the prosecutor said.

Olvera bailed out of jail and is to be arraigned Monday, said Deputy Public Defender Alfred LeSane.

Meanwhile, the supermarket strike enters its 11th day.

According to 10News, leaders of the striking grocery union are quoted as saying they are ready to get back to the bargaining table with supermarkets and a federal negotiator.