King Soopers sues labor union amid Colorado worker strike

DENVER — With a two-week strike underway in several Front Range communities — including parts of Boulder and Broomfield counties — King Soopers has sued the labor union that represents thousands of its employees, accusing United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 of illegally coordinating its contract negotiation efforts with several separate, out-of-state unions.

The Kroger Co.-owned (NYSE: KR) grocery-store chain said on Friday that UFCW is “forcing the Company to bargain with labor unions from Washington and California — that do not represent its associates — to push an impermissible agenda at the bargaining table.”

The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Denver by King Soopers parent entity Dillon Cos. LLC, claims that a ”substantial purpose of Local 7’s actions, strike threats, and its sanctioned strike against King Soopers is to force King Soopers to bargain collectively, not solely with Local 7, but with different labor unions representing non-King Soopers employees outside of Colorado, including the Teamsters Local 38 based in Everett, Washington; UFCW Local 3000 based in Des Moines, Washington; UFCW Local 770, based in Los Angeles, California; and UFCW Local 324 based in Buena Park, California.” 

UFCW officials have called the lawsuit “frivolous” and its allegations “baseless.”

“This litigation is nothing more than an attempt to distract from King Soopers’ efforts to silence its workforce and prevent workers from reaching an equitable contract that addresses major issues like staffing, safety, and healthcare,” the union said in a prepared statement. “Kroger will go to any length to hide its corporate greed in price gouging and shareholder buybacks.”

King Soopers’ legal complaint accuses UFCW Local 7 of working with allied labor organizations in Washington and California to “consolidate their bargaining and other efforts to force multi-union bargaining on King Soopers and other employers without bargaining relationships with the labor unions.”

Local union leadership has “has ceded some or all of its control and decision-making on contract proposals and strategies to assert or make during negotiations with King Soopers to other labor organizations,” the complaint alleges. 

The two-week unfair labor practices strike began Feb. 6 after the grocery store chain and the union failed to agree on a new labor contract.

The National Labor Relations Board defines two categories of lawful strike activities: unfair-labor-practices strikes and economic strikes. The current King Soopers work stoppage is an unfair-labor-practices strike. “Such strikers can be neither discharged nor permanently replaced,” according to the NLRB. “When the strike ends, unfair labor practice strikers, absent serious misconduct on their part, are entitled to have their jobs back even if employees hired to do their work have to be discharged.”

Among the unfair-labor-practice allegations made by the union are claims that King Soopers management has interrogated and surveilled union members engaged in organizing activities, refused to provide union negotiators with pertinent information, threatened to discipline members for wearing clothing and pins with union messaging and used millions of dollars from retirement funds to pay workers who aren’t participating in the strike.

“The workers feel like Kroger values their employees like they value their equipment — just use it until it breaks,” UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova said during a rally in Denver last week. “Workers are broken, and that’s why we’re on the picket line today.”

As part of a new labor contract, the union has demanded better pay, benefits and working conditions.

“Our associates work hard every day to serve their neighbors and families in Colorado. They deserve a union that puts them first, not one that prioritizes a strategy orchestrated by out-of-state special interests,” King Soopers president Joe Kelley said in a Friday statement issued after the lawsuit was filed. “We’re committed to a fair contract that delivers real wage increases, affordable healthcare, and pension stability — just like we always have. But we won’t be pressured by illegal actions that hurt our stores, our associates, or the communities that rely on us.” 

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

The current work stoppage is the second in three years for Colorado’s unionized King Soopers workers, who went on strike in January 2022 when negotiations over the most-recent labor agreement broke down.

The lawsuit is Dillon Cos. LLC vs. United Food and Commercial Workers Local Union No. 7, case number 1:25-cv-00417, filed Feb. 7, 2025 in U.S. District Court in Colorado.

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