After Months of Negotiations, Contracts for King Soopers and City Market Workers Have Now Expired
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 17, 2025
CONTACT: Kim Cordova
kcordova@ufcw7.com | 303-425-0897 ext. 402
Denver, CO – Negotiations began in October of 2024 for UFCW Local 7-represented grocery store workers in metro Denver and many other areas in Colorado for contracts originally set to expire on January 5th. The union had agreed to a contract extension until 11:59 PM on the 16th of January in hopes that negotiators for the Kroger-owned King Soopers and City Market stores would change their approach and get serious with real proposals that respect workers. Unfortunately, even negotiation sessions lasting late into the evenings on Wednesday and Thursday only resulted in a so-called “last-best-and final” concessionary offer from the employer that continues to propose a contract that the bargaining team had made clear was not acceptable, disrespects workers, and ignores their proposals.
“As of this morning, many of our grocery store workers’ contracts have expired,” said Kim Cordova, UFCW Local 7 President. “It is unfortunate that the negotiations have come to this. We started meeting with the company in October with clear goals of necessary wage increases so workers could afford to live in our state, maintain decent health and retirement benefits, and resolve a staffing crisis that is causing daily strife for workers and customers alike. The company’s proposal fails on all fronts.”
As a result of the expiration of the extension agreement, the no-strike clause that existed in the contract is no longer in effect. Union leadership is communicating with workers and in the process of scheduling strike votes. Votes have not yet been held to authorize a strike, but those votes could be announced as early as Monday.
“None of us expect to get rich working in a grocery store,” said Carol McMillian, King Soopers worker from Aurora, Colorado. “What we do expect is that we will make enough money to buy food at the same store we work at, that we can pay for a place to live, have decent health care and retirement, and that our employer will staff the stores with enough of us so we can get our jobs done and serve our customers’ needs. So far, their proposals fail to accomplish that.”
Despite announcements last month that the company wants to fast-track billions of dollars in payments to their Wall Street investors, they continue to propose a contract which:
Takes no meaningful action to address the staffing crisis in grocery stores.
Allows Kroger to continue ignoring threats to the safety of grocery store workers and customers.
Grabs more than $25 million in reserves from health care plans for active workers and retirees to fund wage increases.
Forces workers to choose between immediate cuts to Health Care Benefits or future cuts in excess of a projected $47 million.
Eliminates seniority-based scheduling protections.
Guts pathways to full-time employment.
Includes what are effectively wage cuts for some workers and paltry wage increases for thousands more.
Permits the company to outsource union jobs to gig workers.
“Workers are tired of having to apologize to customers for long lines, empty shelves, higher prices, and shuttered departments. Corporate executives are more interested in boosting share prices than solving the staffing crises and improving customer experience. The company clearly has the money to pay workers what they deserve and to address safety problems. Disappointingly, the company is just unwilling, so far, to do the right thing,” added President Cordova.
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Local 7, the largest Union in Colorado, is affiliated with United Food and Commercial Workers International Union which represents over 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada, and is one of the largest private-sector Unions in North America. UFCW members work in a wide range of industries, including retail food, food processing, agriculture, retail sales, and health care.