When and where will King Soopers workers strike?

Unionized King Soopers workers in Broomfield, Boulder and Louisville will join their fellow United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 members from around the Denver metro area in a two-week strike beginning at 5 a.m. Thursday. 

The work stoppage comes after the King Soopers and the UFCW Local 7 — which has demanded better pay, benefits and working conditions, while accusing the Kroger Co.-owned (NYSE: KR) grocery-store chain of unfair labor practices — have failed to agree on terms for a new labor contract.

“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,” UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova said in a prepared statement. “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.”

King Soopers said on Friday 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.”

The grocery chain claims that it has offered the union what it calls “its last, best and final offer.” King Soopers 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.”

Thursday’s strikers will only include workers in Boulder, Broomfield, Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson counties, but broader labor actions could be coming. King Soopers union workers in Pueblo voted over the weekend to authorize a strike, while the labor contract for UFCW 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.

 “My fellow union members and I don’t want to go on strike, but we have been left with no other option,” Chris Lacey, a King Soopers worker in Littleton, said in a prepared statement. “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.”

The upcoming work stoppage will be the second in three years for UFCW workers, who went on strike in January 2022 when negotiations over the most-recent labor agreement broke down.

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