King Soopers, union negotiators return to table Monday after weekend of striker rallies

DENVER — After King Soopers and its employee union returned to the negotiating table late last week, sniping between the parties continued through the weekend and picketers remained out in full force. 

Grocery store management and representatives from the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 are set to sit down again Monday afternoon in an attempt to hammer out a labor contract.

The union has been on strike and carrying out demonstrations in front of King Soopers locations throughout the Boulder Valley and Denver metro area since last week in an attempt to win better pay, benefits and safety precautions. In some instances, private security has been on site guarding store parking lots. 

“After three consecutive days of negotiations, we have yet to reach an agreement that meets the demands of our members,” UFCW Local 7 president Kim Cordova said in a statement Sunday. “The company refuses to address the skyrocketing costs of living and documented food insecurity in Colorado by not paying essential grocery workers a living wage they deserve. For months, workers have demanded the company take their proposals seriously and have been met with deafening silence.”

More than 8,000 union workers from nearly 80 King Soopers locations throughout metro Denver and the Boulder Valley — including employees in Boulder, Broomfield, Louisville and Westminster — are demanding pay raises, the elimination of a two-tiered salary system that punishes newly hired workers, job outsourcing to non-union workers and stronger health and safety protections in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

King Soopers said last week that it had made what it calls its “last, best and final offer” to the union, which includes the “investment of $170 million over the next three years [that] includes wage investments plus ratification bonuses for all associates.” 

The company said it has “also proposed an additional investment in health care benefits that would result in zero impact to associates current health care premiums based upon the current projections – premiums that have not increased in 12 years if this agreement is ratified. This offer not only puts more money in associates’ pockets but, if accepted, promises to bring stability to our associates and Coloradans who have endured enough uncertainty and disruption.”

After negotiating through the weekend, King Soopers said Sunday that “the company is disappointed that the process is moving slowly but pleased that progress is being made.”

Monday’s continued negotiations in Denver are closed to the press and public. 

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