Kroger's "nefarious bargain"

[douglas9]

In January 2022, as COVID case rates soared nationwide, 8,400 workers at Colorado’s King Soopers supermarkets went on strike for better pay, hours, and on-the-job protections from infection and unruly customers.

King Soopers’ 78 Colorado locations are owned by Kroger, one of the largest grocery firms in the country. The company, which generated $4.3 billion in adjusted operating profit in the year leading up to the strike, called the UFCW’s stoppage “reckless and self-serving.” Workers struck for for 10 days, before ratifying a new contract with higher starting wages and better healthcare benefits in early February 2022.

A lawsuit filed earlier this month by Colorado’s attorney general alleges that Kroger had a secret reason to believe it could weather the UFCW strike two years ago without major disruptions to its King Soopers business: a “nefarious bargain” that it struck with rival grocer Albertsons to ensure the latter wouldn’t poach the struck chain’s picketing workers or inconvenienced customers.



https://popular.info/p/krogers-nefarious-bargain

[AllyCat]

1. Of course. Always corporate greed.

Always. Glad they have a new contract now.

[70sEraVet]

2. Never realized these grocery chains wielded so much power so badly!

The Executive Excesses 2022 report from the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, pegged the median pay of Kroger’s workers nationally at just $26,763 in 2021 — 679 times less than the $18 million Kroger chief executive officer Rodney McMullen was paid that year.
(same article)