Legal & Courts  February 17, 2025

Judge: King Soopers union holding generally ‘peaceful strike’

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 — After a King Soopers demanded a restraining order to limit certain picketing activities by its striking employees, a Denver judge ruled Friday that most of the requested limitations are unnecessary and that the union has made an effort “to have a peaceful strike.”

The temporary restraining order, which King Soopers applied for on Tuesday, was just one 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.

In requesting the restraining order, King Soopers “seeks a sweeping injunction that would severely limit the Union’s picketing activity,” Denver District Court Judge Sarah Wallace wrote in her Friday order, which did establish two narrow limits on picketing. “… In short, King Soopers comes to this Court and requests this Court cease all picketing activity it finds inconvenient and distracting.”

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King Soopers’ lawsuit claimed that union “picketing has included multiple incidents of picketers impeding ingress and egress to Plaintiff’s parking lots and stores,” and alleged “multiple incidents of picketers harassing and intimidating customers.”

King Soopers management demanded certain limits on picketing activity that included:

  • 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 Union has instituted guidelines for the strikers that advises strikers on proper striking conduct. The guidelines, which all picketers signed, instruct picketers not to swear, block traffic, block entrances, bring chairs, make threats or engage in intimidating behavior, engage in physical contact, or use voice modulation devices such as megaphones inappropriately,” Wallace’s order said. “The Court holds that while some of these guidelines may have been violated, the events seem to be isolated and the guidelines show an effort on the part of the Union to have a peaceful strike.”

A King Soopers security director testified this week that “there have been approximately fifty incident reports generated regarding alleged picketer misconduct,” the judge wrote, but “(m)any of the incident reports contain inadmissible hearsay.”

The grocery chain claimed that “the picketers are harassing and intimidating customers but presented no admissible evidence directly from customers asserting violence or intimidation,” the order said. 

Wallace’s order bars the picketers from “(i)mpeding the ingress or egress of delivery vehicles” and “(e)recting temporary structures or piles of trash on the sidewalk in front of King Soopers such that they impede either traffic or pedestrian access to the store.”

In her order, Wallace wrote “that peaceful labor protests and picketing are in the public interest, and any injunction issued by the court will necessarily impact that public interest. The court intends to protect the important public interest, namely the important rights of picketers to protest what they view as unfair labor conditions, by narrowly drafting the Temporary Restraining Order in a manner that maximizes the public interest in a peaceful protest while protecting the physical safety of customers, employees, vendors, and picketers.”

After Wallace’s order was issued Friday, King Soopers president Joe Kelley said in a statement: “Regrettably, we’ve seen more than 300 instances of picketers making choices that compromise safety over the last nine days. We appreciate the court’s decision to grant critical elements of our temporary restraining order, that supports our commitment to safety for everyone. To be clear, the decision to seek a temporary restraining order was not made lightly and is certainly not intended to silence associates. We’ve said from the beginning that we respect our associates’ right to peacefully assemble. However, it is crucial that we maintain an environment of mutual respect.” 

UFCW 7 leadership said in a statement Friday that King Soopers’ “legal action was an attempt to both silence workers and even prevent them from trying to keep warm on the picket line.”

The restraining order request came 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.

After a King Soopers demanded a restraining order to limit certain picketing activities by its striking employees, a Denver judge ruled Friday that most of the requested limitations are unnecessary and that the union has made an effort “to have a peaceful strike.”

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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 Legal & Courts Retail Today's News King Soopers
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