Economy & Economic Development  January 17, 2025

With no new contract, King Soopers workers could vote to strike

King Soopers strike from 2022
King Soopers employees with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 rallied in Denver during a 2022 strike. Lucas High/BizWest.
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Having failed to reach a deal with King Soopers on a new labor contract after two days of last-minute negotiations on Wednesday and Thursday, Front Range employees of the Colorado grocery chain who are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 could go on strike for the second time in three years.

The union, which has asked for better pay, benefits and working conditions, had agreed to a two-week contract extension in early January to allow for more bargaining, but that time has run out.

“As a result of the expiration of the extension agreement, the no-strike clause that existed in the contract is no longer in effect,” UFCW said Friday afternoon. “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.”

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If there are enough votes, UFCW workers, who went on strike in January 2022 when negotiations over the most-recent labor agreement broke down, will hit the picket lines again.

“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,” UFCW Local 7 president Kim Cordova said in a prepared statement. “The company’s proposal fails on all fronts.”

Kroger Co.-owned (NYSE: KR) King Soopers claims to have offered the union its “its last, best and final offer” on Thursday that included “significant wage increases,” “affordable healthcare” and a “committed focus on effective staffing.”

The company said it “has consistently bargained in good faith, putting forward comprehensive offers that prioritize associates’ needs and ensure operational stability.”

Contract negotiations between the grocery chain and the union, members of which are seeking wage increases, seem to have a habit of occurring against a background of broader tumult for King Soopers. 

The 2022 strike came as the COVID-19 pandemic was shining a spotlight on the critical role that essential workers such as grocery-store employees play in everyday life, and just months after a gunman killed 10 people, including King Soopers employees, in the King Soopers store in Boulder’s Table Mesa shopping center.

That labor dispute was an ugly one, with both sides suing the other and King Soopers successfully petitioning a judge for a temporary restraining order against picketers, who were accused of aggressive tactics. 

King Soopers brought in non-union workers to staff stores during the strike, some of whom were paid more than what was being demanded by the union. Private security was also used by the Kroger Co. chain during union rallies and picketing events.

Management also blamed strikers for its decision to delay the reopening of the Table Mesa store in Boulder, closed for nearly a year after the March 2021 shooting. The union had cited this violent tragedy, which occurred during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as an example of management’s failure to properly account for employee health and safety. 

The most-recent contract negotiations collapsed just after a planned merger between King Soopers parent company Kroger and Albertsons Cos. (NYSE: ACI), which was opposed by regulators and the union, exploded last month in a flurry of lawsuits.

After a pair of judges issued injunctions in mid-December blocking a merger between the companies, Albertsons threw in the towel, calling off the $24.6 billion deal and suing Kroger for failing to secure regulatory approval for the business combination. 

Kroger failed “to exercise ‘best efforts’ and to take ‘any and all actions’ to secure regulatory approval of the companies’ agreed merger transaction, as was required of Kroger under the terms of the merger agreement between the parties,” Albertsons said last month.

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Kroger breached its merger contract with Albertsons, which owns and operates Safeway grocery stores in Colorado, “by repeatedly refusing to divest assets necessary for antitrust approval, ignoring regulators’ feedback, rejecting stronger divestiture buyers and failing to cooperate with Albertsons,” Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons said. 

Albertsons said it plans to ask the court to enforce a $600 million contract termination fee, and is “seeking billions of dollars in damages from Kroger to make Albertsons and its shareholders whole.”

Having failed to reach a deal with King Soopers on a new labor contract, union members could go on strike for the second time in three years.

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A Maryland native, Lucas has worked at news agencies from Wyoming to South Carolina before putting roots down in Colorado.
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