Legal & Courts  February 12, 2025

Union: King Soopers lawsuit ‘attempts to silence its own workers’ voices’

King Soopers striking workers in February 2025.
Unionized King Soopers employees on a picket line near a King Soopers location in Denver. Lucas High/BizWest
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DENVER — King Soopers asked a Denver judge Tuesday to grant a temporary restraining order against striking union employees that would limit certain picketing activities.

The move is the latest in a flurry of lawsuits involving the Kroger Co.-owned (NYSE: KR) grocery-store chain and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, the union that represents thousands of King Soopers employees in the Boulder Valley, metro Denver and Pueblo who engaged in a work stoppage. 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.

King Soopers’ demand for a restraining order claims that union “picketing has included multiple incidents of picketers impeding ingress and egress to Plaintiff’s parking lots and stores.” The latest lawsuit, filed in Denver District Court, alleges “multiple incidents of picketers harassing and intimidating customers.”

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UCFW 7 said the restraining order is an attempt by King Soopers “to silence its own workers’ voices.” 

The grocery chain, the union said, “is asking a court to stop striking workers from doing what striking workers do: Picketing in front of their workplaces and speaking with one voice, a voice that the company is currently stifling by refusing to negotiate in good faith. The fact that the Company is effectively suing its own workers is particularly galling. Indeed, the Company’s suit literally complains that workers who are picketing in subzero weather are using portable heating devices.”

King Soopers management has asked the court to implement a temporary restraining order that would establish certain limits on picketing activity. Those include:

  • A ban on “cursing or using profanity.”
  • No “impeding the ingress or egress, including scissoring or carousel movement among picketers, of any customer, employee, vendor or vehicle.”
  • No blocking delivery trucks.
  • No “injuring, menacing, threatening, molesting, intimidating, shouting at” employees, customers or vendors.
  • A ban on amplified music, bullhorns and airhorns.
  • A ban on “setting up tables and food services on company premises.”

“The safety of our associates, customers, and community members is our top priority,” King Soopers president Joe Kelley said in a prepared statement. “For the more than 50% of customers who continue to depend on us for access to fresh food, essentials and prescriptions from our pharmacies we have a responsibility to ensure they can safely access our stores. At the same time, we want to provide a safe environment for those participating in the work stoppage. We know the only place this work stoppage is resolved is at the bargaining table and remain open to meeting with the UFCW Local 7.”

The restraining order request comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by King Soopers late last week that accuses United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 of illegally coordinating its contract negotiation efforts with several separate, out-of-state unions.

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

The union has issued complaints with the National Labor Relations Board that claim 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.

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

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 2022 strike also featured a number of lawsuits from both parties, including a temporary restraining order related to picketing.

King Soopers asked a Denver judge Tuesday to grant a temporary restraining order against striking union employees that would limit certain picketing activities.

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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: Legal & Courts Retail Sunday Weekly Today's News King Soopers United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7
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