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Grocery Workers

SNAP Axe Could Fall On Grocery Shoppers And Workers Alike

Beginning November 1, 42 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as “food stamps,” are set to go without benefits. Among them are union members in underpaid industries like grocery and retail. SNAP keeps millions of Americans and their families from going hungry. Due to the government shutdown, new SNAP funding has not been allocated by Congress, and existing funding has run out. This would be the first time in the program’s 61-year history that SNAP benefits have not been paid. For years Congress has appropriated a SNAP contingency fund to cover emergencies like a shutdown. UFCW Votes, the United Food and Commercial Workers’ political arm, has launched a petition calling for the release of these funds, something the AFL-CIO and 25 other unions are also calling for.

8,000 Indiana Kroger Workers Vote Down Contract A Second Time

Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 700 members across Indiana voted on July 10 and 11 to reject a tentative agreement covering 8,000 Kroger retail workers. This is the second contract Kroger workers have rejected, after 74 percent voted down the first offer in May. Local 700 has not announced the vote percentage on the second tentative agreement. Kroger’s offer included a wage increase of just $0.90 over 3 years for starting pay, along with a $200 Kroger gift card that members called “insulting.” “That $200 gift card felt like a huge joke,” said Andrea Reynolds, a 27-year Kroger worker in Kokomo. “I couldn’t tell you how many contracts I’ve been through, and that is the lowest ratification ‘bonus’ we’ve ever had.”

Denver Safeway Workers Go On Strike

Denver, CO – On Sunday morning, June 14, Safeway and Albertsons workers started their first unfair labor practices strike in Colorado since 1996. The strike comes after nine months of failed negotiations and 18 months without a pay raise. Workers are demanding livable wages, protection for healthcare and pensions, and an end to ongoing understaffing. The most recent contract proposal was rejected since it met none of these demands. A statement from the union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, said, “The ongoing unfair labor practices, including bad faith bargaining, as well as surveilling and threatening workers, have given us no choice but to strike.”

Grocery Workers Vs Goliath

In early February, when temperatures in Denver plunged to seven degrees below zero and snow dusted the sidewalks, Martin Bonilla, bundled in two jackets and a neck warmer, walked a picket line 1,000 miles from his home of Fillmore, Calif. Bonilla works in the produce department at Vons and had flown to Colorado in the early morning after finishing an 11-and-a-half-hour shift. Over the next eight days, Bonilla picketed five of the 77 striking Kroger-owned King Soopers stores in Colorado, in support of 10,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7, putting in 16-hour shifts each day before going back to his hotel, exhausted.

10,000 King Soopers Strikers Go Back For 100 Days

Denver - Ten thousand striking grocery workers at 77 King Soopers stores in the Denver, Boulder and Louisville, Colorado, area returned to work on Feb. 18 for an agreed 100 days while the company and union restarted bargaining negotiations. Strike activities which workers called on Feb. 6 for two weeks will now cease while negotiations are resumed. The company agreed to withdraw its demand that the union accept its “last best offer” and that workers would not have their health insurance cut due to not working during the 12-day strike. Employees need to work at least 80 hours in four weeks to keep their health coverage.

Unionized Grocery Workers Are A Sleeping Giant

In the first six months of 2025, grocery contracts covering over 130,000 union workers are set to expire. The contracts span five states, a dozen local unions, and several employers — namely the grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons. Kroger’s last, best, and final offer included abysmal wage increases, with thousands of workers offered $0.25 or less in the first year of the contract. It failed to address worker concerns over understaffing, low wages, two-tier discrimination, shorter wage steps, and protections from automation. Grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons’ $24.6 billion mega-merger was blocked in court after a coalition of UFCW and Teamster locals, including UFCW Locals 7, 324, 770, and 3000, organized a powerful “Stop the Merger” campaign.

10,000 King Soopers Workers Strike At 77 Stores

Denver, Colorado - Unionized workers walked out at 5:00 a.m. on Feb. 6 in a two-week strike against 77 King Soopers stores in Colorado. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 struck stores in six counties that include the major cities of Denver, Boulder and Louisville. In the strike authorization vote, UFCW members voted 96% in favor. The Unfair Labor Practice strike was called after contract negotiations that began in October 2024 failed. The contract expired in January. Workers on the picket line say that Kroger, the parent company of King Soopers and a hugely profitable corporation, wants them to accept a contract that will take them backward.

UFCW Locals Block Kroger-Albertsons Mega-Merger

In a victory for labor—and in particular, for a coalition of United Food and Commercial Workers local unions—judges in Oregon and Washington state have separately ruled against the proposed mega-merger of Kroger and Albertsons, effectively blocking it and leading Albertsons to terminate the merger agreement. On December 10, a federal district court in Oregon upheld a preliminary injunction on the merger requested by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). On the same day, a court in Washington also ruled against the merger in a separate suit brought by the state’s attorney general.

Judges Block Kroger-Albertsons Merger

Antitrust advocates on Tuesday welcomed a pair of court rulings against the proposed merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, which was challenged by Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and multiple state attorneys general. "The FTC, along with our state partners, scored a major victory for the American people, successfully blocking Kroger's acquisition of Albertsons," said Henry Liu, director of the commission's Bureau of Competition, in a statement. "This historic win protects millions of Americans across the country from higher prices for essential groceries—from milk, to bread, to eggs—ultimately allowing consumers to keep more money in their pockets."

College Park MOM’s Workers Reject Effort To Oust Union

College Park, MD - United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400 Union announced workers at the MOM’s Organic Market in College Park, Md. have resoundingly voted down an effort to decertify the union at the store. The attempt to oust the union was backed by the National Right to Work Committee, an anti-union organization based in Northern Virginia. Workers resoundingly rejected the effort and voted 22–9 in favor of remaining unionized with UFCW Local 400. “We know MOM’s can be a better place to work and the best way to make that happen is to stand together and collectively demand the change we need.

Thousands Of Portland Grocery Workers On Strike

Thousands of grocery workers in Portland, Oakland, at 28 Fred Meyer stores walked out at 6 a.m. on Aug. 28, beginning a week-long strike. Workers are demanding better wages and pension plans in addition to good faith bargaining. On the third day of the strike, workers told this reporter that Fred Meyer’s sales have plummeted 69%. Kroger bought Fred Meyer in 1998 and also owns Albertsons and Safeway in Oregon. Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the U.S. and the country’s fifth-largest retailer. Inside the Fred Meyer stores, the meat, bakery and deli departments have closed. Stores are opening two hours later than usual.

Work To Rule And Open Bargaining Back Down Kroger Warehouse Bosses

Teamsters in an Indiana grocery warehouse scored big this year with a contract campaign like never before. They organized in five languages and sported a multilingual union button. They opened up bargaining sessions for any member to come observe—on the peak day, 150 showed up. They even pulled off a daring work-to-rule action the week before bargaining kicked off, to start from a position of strength. The final night, June 30, negotiations came down to the wire, stretching past the midnight contract expiration deadline. Some members were itching to walk.

Grocery Workers File Union Democracy Lawsuit

Members seeking to transform the United Food and Commercial Workers have added a new weapon to their arsenal: legal action. Grocery workers Kyong Barry (Local 3000 in Washington) and Iris Scott (Local 1459 in Massachusetts) sued the UFCW April 19 over the undemocratic representation of members at the UFCW Convention, which takes place every five years. There are several charges, but the crux of the lawsuit is that delegates are apportioned across locals in such a way as to deny members equal voice. A favorable ruling would enable reformers in other unions to sue on the same basis. The UFCW is the fifth-largest union in the U.S. after the NEA, SEIU, AFSCME, and the Teamsters.

Grocery Workers Make Waves In The Land Of Lakes

It wasn’t such a merry Christmas for grocery store management in central Minnesota. Five hundred grocery workers in the Brainerd Lakes area walked out on an unfair labor practice strike, deserting five stores between December 22 and 25. Management tried to keep the stores running, but workers said they turned into disaster zones. Why did two Cub Foods stores, two Super Ones, and a SuperValu find themselves on Santa’s naughty list last year? Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 663 charges management with interrogation, surveillance, intimidation, and bargaining in bad faith.

At UFCW, A Reform Movement Rises

Las Vegas — It was 7:30 on a Monday morning on the Las Vegas Strip, early enough to stand outside without sunscreen. A group of people — first a trickle, then dozens — wearing matching blue T-shirts that read ​“Organizing & Bargaining & The Right to Strike & A Voice in Our Union,” flooded the patio of the Mirage Resort & Casino pool, overwhelming the early morning smokers who had sought refuge there. This group was smiling, energized, far too wholesome for their garish surroundings. Like a team of underdogs before a critical game, they seethed with nervous excitement.  These were the reformers.
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