{"id":23617,"date":"2025-02-07T18:09:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T01:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/king-soopers-workers-strike-over-staffing-and-safety\/"},"modified":"2025-02-08T01:09:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T01:09:47","slug":"king-soopers-workers-strike-over-staffing-and-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/king-soopers-workers-strike-over-staffing-and-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"King Soopers workers strike over staffing and safety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jesus
Jesus Sanchez, left, and Chris Arceo hold picket signs outside of a southwest Denver King Soopers on the first day of a strike Thursday. (Kevin J. Beaty\/Denverite)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Unionized King Soopers workers across the Front Range launched a two-week strike before dawn Thursday morning. More than 10,000 workers across 77 stores in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson counties marched in front of their stores \u2013 many carrying white and red signs urging customers not to \u201cpatronize King Soopers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the key sticking points are staffing shortages, outsourcing union jobs to gig workers, health care reserves, price gouging, and eliminating seniority-based scheduling protections.<\/p>\n

While the workers are not striking over wages, King Soopers has publicly offered to boost clerks\u2019 hourly wage by $4.50 over four years \u2013 with some associates earning over $27 an hour by 2028. Currently, the average hourly wage for a full-time associate at King Soopers is $22.68.<\/p>\n

But despite the size of the strike, all of the stores remained open with \u201cimpacted locations running on temporary hours,\u201d the grocery store chain said in a press release.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a responsibility to our associates and communities to ensure they have access to fresh food and other essentials,\u201d the President of King Soopers, Joe Kelley, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"Linda
Linda Largent, a former King Soopers employee, pickets with workers outside of an east Denver location on the first day of a strike on Thursday. (Kevin J. Beaty\/Denverite)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

According to strikers, the Kroger-owned grocery chain hired hundreds of temporary workers to offset the impact of the strike.<\/p>\n

\u201c(King Soopers\u2019) hired them a week ago,\u201d said Heloise Lindberg, a deli counter worker on strike at a Boulder King Soopers. \u201cWe have 38 (temporary workers) at this store. They\u2019re from Texas, (King Soopers) flew them in and paid for their hotels.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to union president Kim Cordova, King Soopers used a staffing agency to hire the workers. She said the grocery giant trained the temps in the nonunion stores in Northern Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re offering [the temporary workers] more money than what they\u2019re offering these workers here in our own community,\u201d Cordova said.<\/p>\n

King Soopers did not respond to a request for comment about the hiring of temporary workers or the claims regarding their pay.<\/p>\n

A strategic stand<\/div>\n

Union organizers say the strike was purposely organized directly before two big holiday weekends \u2013 the Super Bowl and Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

\"Kim
Kim Cordova, president of Colorado's United Food and Commercial Workers union, holds a news conference outside of an East Denver King Soopers on the first day of a strike Thursday. (Kevin J. Beaty\/Denverite)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThey don\u2019t respect their associates, they\u2019re not respecting their customers, but the one thing they pay attention to is their profit,\u201d said Cordova at a news conference Thursday. \u201cAnd we know that the Super Bowl and Valentine\u2019s Day are very important to them, and the timing is really based on the fact that they refuse to bargain. But we are well aware of what those holidays mean to this company, it\u2019s all about money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conor Hall, a longtime King Soopers employee, has worked at the deli counter of the Table Mesa location in Boulder for more than seven years. He said he participated in the last strike two years ago, which called for better worker safety \u2013 especially after the deadly King Soopers shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time around, one of our core issues is around staffing,\u201d Hall said. \u201cI think anyone who\u2019s been shopping in the stores \u2013 especially since the announcement of the merger \u2013 but year after year has seen a massive decrease in the amount of staff in the store. And that\u2019s not resulted in a decrease of work on our end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re working harder, we\u2019re doing the work of two, three different people. We\u2019re working faster, we\u2019re working in less safe (conditions) and ultimately every day we\u2019re making choices. We\u2019re having to make the calculation of, well, what\u2019s not going to get done today? Am I not going to get everything clean? Am I not going to help every customer? Am I not going to produce everything or am I going to work fast and unsafe?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Picketers
Picketers hold signs outside an east Denver King Soopers during a news conference on the first day of a strike Thursday. (Kevin J. Beaty\/Denverite)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Nonunion members joined the picket lines<\/div>\n

Former employees and community members also joined the picket lines Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

Loyal King Soopers customer for more than 30 years, Inge Lacour, 82, not only said she plans on grocery shopping elsewhere until \u201cthings are fixed,\u201d but she also joined the picket line of one store in Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a very, very privileged woman who absolutely cannot agree what is going on in this country,\u201d Lacour said.<\/p>\n

A few moments later, Lacour convinced a customer to shop elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just approached him very kindly and said, good morning and I said you do have a choice that is a Safeway, five minutes further down, and we would appreciate it if you would go there. \u2026 And he turned around in his car and drove down to Safeway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JulieAnna
JulieAnna Gonzales and Drako the dog picket outside of a southwest Denver King Soopers on the first day of a strike Thursday. (Kevin J. Beaty\/Denverite)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Linda Largent, a retired King Soopers employee and another nonunion member, joined the picket line to support her \u201cformer coworkers and friends.\u201d According to Largent, who started working at the King Soopers at the deli counter in 1987 and retired two years ago, \u201cthings changed over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time it just became more corporate,\u201d Largent said. \u201cStaffing got ridiculous \u2013 especially after the last strike, I think they really were trying to get us back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kroger owns 118 King Soopers in Colorado and says it \u201crespects its associates\u2019 rights to participate in a work stoppage.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10,000 employees from 77 stores took up signs in Colorado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,28,2594],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-headlines","tag-strike"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23617"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}