Colorado Grocery Store Workers Announce Two-week ULP Strikes to Begin on Thursday February 6
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 3, 2025
CONTACT: Monique Palacios
mpalacios@ufcw7.com | 303-425-0897 ext. 403
When: Starting at 5:00 AM MT on Thursday, February 6, 2025.
Where: All unionized King Soopers stores throughout Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson counties as well as King Soopers stores in the cities of Boulder and Louisville.
Who: UFCW Local 7 grocery store members working at the above stores. During the last week of January these workers voted by 96% to authorize a ULP (Unfair Labor Practice) strike. They have been in contract negotiations since October and their contract expired in January. These strikes cover approximately 10,000 workers at 77 stores.
What: Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strikes are allowed under federal law when workers have attempted to resolve a conflict or dispute with their employer and have formalized that complaint in an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the employer with the National Labor Relations Board. The specific ULPs in this case are multiple and include some of the following type of charges:
Illegally interrogating union members about our bargaining and surveilling members in discussions with union staff.
Illegally refusing to provide information necessary for the union to be able to make or consider proposals in contract negotiations including sales data necessary for staffing proposals
Illegally threatening members with discipline and sending home from work for simply exercising their union right to wear union clothing, buttons and other union gear that allow workers to stand in solidarity.
Unlawfully insisting on gutting $8 million in retiree health benefit funds to pay for wage increases for active workers.
Connor Hall, a King Soopers worker from the Deli department at the store 33 in Boulder, who is on the union member bargaining team said, “These are serious charges against Kroger-owned King Soopers. They have, and continue to, break the law and are trying to force us to accept a new contract that takes us backward. That’s not going to happen. Meanwhile we have real problems with low staffing, and low wages that make the jobs so bad that many of us can’t even afford to shop where we work.”
Fellow worker Chris Lacey, a service manager from a Littleton King Soopers store added “My fellow union members and I don’t want to go on strike, but we have been left with no other option. King Soopers has been understaffing our stores for years – harming workers and customers – and when we have tried to resolve that harm in negotiations the company has illegally withheld information we need to make our proposals and respond to their proposals. And now they have the gall to say we are stalling? They are the ones who have been holding up progress for months.”
UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova who heads up the negotiations and led the strike back in 2022 stated, “This strike is about holding one of the largest corporations in America accountable when they break the law and cause harm to workers and our customers. We are holding this strike for a two-week period to allow everyone to understand our concerns, and give the employer time to right their wrong.”
Background: Contract negotiations between Local 7 grocery store workers and King Soopers began in October. For months the employer failed to respond in any way to the union’s requests for information on data that relates to pricing and staffing. Some information was provided starting in January, but it is still inadequate.
King Soopers division President Joe Kelley oversaw the most recent strike by King Soopers workers in 2022. The Company’s actions during that strike are the subject of a lawsuit by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser for entering into an illegal “no-poach” agreement with Albertsons to undercut the striking workers.
UFCW Local 7 represents 23,000 union workers across Colorado and Wyoming and nearly 12,000 of those workers are employed at King Soopers and City Market stores.
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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.