Boulder, Denver King Soopers to Begin Strike on February 6

Starting at 5 a.m. on Thursday, February 6, King Soopers employees in Colorado will start a two-week strike over alleged unfair labor practices committed by Kroger as employees try to negotiate a new union contract with the grocery chain.

Employees at King Soopers stores in Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties will strike as will workers in Boulder and Louisville. Strikes will impact 77 stores in the state, covering about 10,000 workers.

King Soopers and City Market employees have been negotiating a renewed union contract with King Soopers since last fall, but negotiations have stalled. On January 29 and 30, unionized workers at Kroger-owned stores across a handful of Colorado locations held votes, with over 95 percent of Denver King Soopers workers voting to strike; statewide, 96 percent of workers voted to authorize a strike.

UFCW Local 7 has a 37-member bargaining committee representing 12,000 King Soopers and City Market workers across the state led by Kim Cordova, UFCW Local 7 president. Workers want their new contract to address staffing issues, improve health-care benefits and increase wages to match Colorado's cost of living. In addition to saying the company hasn’t met those conditions, UFCW Local 7 alleges King Soopers has committed unfair labor practices violations in the negotiation process.

“These range from illegal intimidation of workers by the employer to the employer’s failure to provide needed information on staffing to allow for the union to prepare a comprehensive proposal to resolve the staffing crisis in King Soopers’ stores,” Cordova says in an announcement about the strike authorization.

Specific allegations include illegal interrogation and surveillance of union members, a refusal to provide sales data to the union, threatening or disciplining employees for wearing union buttons and other union-related gear, and proposing to take away $8 million in retiree health benefit funds in exchange for higher worker wages.

According to Kroger, the National Labor Relations Board has not yet ruled on the union’s allegations and the company believes the allegations to be unfounded.

“While disappointed by the outcome of Local 7 obtaining strike authorization, King Soopers remains committed to its primary focus of increasing associates' paychecks while keeping groceries affordable for customers,” King Soopers spokesperson Jessica Trowbridge says in a statement.

The company claims that union leaders should have let employees vote on what the company calls its “last, best and final” offer before conducting the strike was authorized. That proposal includes “$4.50/hour [raises] over the life of the contract for Top Rate associates (excluding courtesy clerks), department heads and Pharmacy Techs," according to Kroger.

Kroger said it would provide affordable health care, keep pensions for workers and hold meetings about staffing concerns along with workplace violence prevention training. Additionally, the company offered to add sanitation clerk and hourly manager roles to at least twenty stores over the next four years.

However, workers say those terms do not represent actual improvements to safety standards or staffing issues in stores. According to the union, the company’s proposal required employees to decide whether to lose health-care benefits now or in the future rather than preserving benefits. Additionally, workers say the contract would actually cut wages for some employees and allow Kroger to outsource some union jobs to gig workers.

“Staffing in our stores is at an unsustainable level,” Conor Hall, a King Soopers deli clerk from Boulder, says in the strike authorization announcement. “Workers are asked to do the job of two or three people, leading to bare shelves and long lines. Kroger has prevented us from reaching a contract as a result of their unfair labor practices. The company has left us no choice other than to call a strike.”

Kroger workers last initiated a strike in Colorado in 2022. Metro Denver workers held out for ten days that January before earning raises from the company and returning to work. The union contract they agreed to with Kroger included a “no strike clause” that expired on January 17.

Striking workers say they chose a two-week timeframe to ensure customers would understand worker concerns and management would have time to respond, Cordova adds in an announcement about the strikes.