vote to ask members to authorize a strike Jan. 29 in Westminster.
A second vote is set for Jan. 30 in Greenwood Village. More are expected. United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7 said they’re starting in the Denver area because of the larger union presence and because that’s where contracts first expired Jan. 5. Negotiations were extended until Jan. 16 but King Soopers’ last offer was rejected Friday.
“They’re proposing wage increases that are not across the board. Not only are they inadequate, but they’re different based on the zip code,” said Kim Cordova, Local 7’s president. “The company is charging the same price to a customer but the workers are going to be paid less. That’s unacceptable to us.”
Kim Cordova, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, during a rally in January 2022 as grocery store workers picketed outside a King Soopers store in east Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)The company’s proposed wages, of up to $4.50 an hour increase over a four-year contract, would apply “to a very few select people,” Cordova said. Others would see much less, she said. Plus, she’s concerned about health benefits, inadequate staffing, competition from third-party vendors and worker safety.
King Soopers management had offered their “last-best-and-final” offer Thursday, added 25 cents to boost pay raises for retail clerks by $1.50 an hour, among other changes. The grocer’s proposal expires Jan. 31.
“We believe this is an excellent offer and that our associates should be given the opportunity to vote for it. It reflects substantially improved wages for our associates,” the company said in a statement.
The possibility of another grocery worker strike comes almost three years to the day after King Soopers employees ended their 10-day strike Jan. 21, 2022, when the union reached a new three-year contract with the grocer. That contract included a “no-strike clause,” which is no longer in effect since the contract expired, union officials said.
Back on Jan. 12, 2022, more than 8,000 workers walked out at 77 King Soopers stores in the Denver area for a nine-day strike.
This time around, since the strike vote over unfair labor practices is coming later in the month, more contracts have expired, including in Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Cordova estimates there’s 10,000 union members who are working on an expired contract. City Market contracts in Grand Junction expire Jan. 25, while a number of other King Soopers stores in Fort Collins, Greeley, Longmont and Loveland expire Feb. 15.
Local 7 began negotiations on a new contract in October as King Soopers’ parent Kroger Inc. was fighting three lawsuits opposing its $24.6 billion merger with Safeway’s parent Albertsons.
Regulators said the supermarket megamerger was anticompetitive, and a judge in the Federal Trade Commission case temporarily halted the merger in December. A day later, Albertsons called off the merger and sued Kroger for failing to do what was needed to appease regulators.
A crowd of largely union members attended a listening session to share their thoughts with federal and state officials opposing the pending Kroger Co. merger with Albertsons. The hour-long listening tour was held at Mi Casa Resource Center in Denver on Nov. 1, 2023. (Tamara Chuang, The Colorado Sun)☀️ READ MORE
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The union opposed the merger, and it became a distraction that really hurt workers and new contract negotiations, Cardova said.
“They’re not happy with Local 7, that we were out front and met with regulators not just here but the FTC,” Cordova said. “We believe the merger has totally impacted everything. We’ve seen a huge decline in staffing and hours in the stores, and workers and consumers have been paying for this. … We’re going to continue to suffer as a result of this failure, this food fight, this debacle of a merger between them and Albertsons.”
Kroger owns 118 King Soopers and 32 City Market stores in Colorado. Not all are unionized. And not all in the Front Range are part of the current strike vote, since some of the stores’ three-year contracts are not yet expired.
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