Retail  January 31, 2025

King Soopers union votes to authorize strike

No dates determined for work stoppage in Broomfield, Boulder counties

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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Unionized King Soopers workers in Broomfield and Boulder counties joined their peers in the Denver metro area to vote in favor of a strike authorization this week as the Kroger Co.-owned (NYSE: KR) grocery-store chain and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 have failed to agree on terms for a new labor contract.

The union, which has asked for better pay, benefits and working conditions, has not determined when a strike could begin.

“There are multiple Unfair Labor Practice charges we have filed against King Soopers over the last several months. These range from illegal intimidation of workers by the employer to the employer’s failure to provide needed information on staffing to allow for the union to prepare a comprehensive proposal to resolve the staffing crisis in King Soopers’ stores,” Kim Cordova, president of UFCW Local 7, which represents 12,000 King Soopers workers in Colorado, said in a prepared statement Thursday. “Kroger negotiators have illegally insisted on robbing retiree health care benefits to fund wage increases for workers today. Sadly, this Company’s targeting of fixed-income retirees and other vulnerable populations only compounds its history of targeting consumers with predatory pricing.”

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King Soopers said that it “is confident that the Union’s allegations of Unfair Labor Practices are unfounded,” and that the company is “disappointed by the outcome of Local 7 obtaining strike authorization.”

King Soopers said it has offered the union what it calls “its last, best and final offer.” The company said that the offer included “significant wage increases,” including a $4.50 hourly wage increase for top clerks; “affordable healthcare” and a “committed focus on effective staffing.”

A strike, should it occur, would involve workers only in stores around Boulder, Broomfield, Denver and Parker — for now, at least. The labor contract for King Soopers union members in Longmont, Loveland, Fort Collins and Greeley expires in mid-February, and a deal for a new contract or extension has yet to be struck.

Should the union decide to stop working, it will be the second time in three years for UFCW workers, who went on strike in January 2022 when negotiations over the most-recent labor agreement broke down.

Contract negotiations between the grocery chain and the union 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.”

Unionized King Soopers workers in Broomfield and Boulder counties joined their peers in the Denver metro area to vote in favor of a strike authorization this week as the Kroger Co.-owned (NYSE: KR) grocery-store chain and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 have failed to agree on terms for a new labor contract.

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A Maryland native, Lucas has worked at news agencies from Wyoming to South Carolina before putting roots down in Colorado.
Categories: Boulder County Broomfield Retail Sunday Weekly Today's News King Soopers Kroger Co. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7
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