{"id":29196,"date":"2024-02-16T10:59:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T17:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-union-files-labor-practice-charges-against-kroger-and-albertsons-over-no-poaching-agreement\/"},"modified":"2024-02-16T17:59:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T17:59:20","slug":"local-union-files-labor-practice-charges-against-kroger-and-albertsons-over-no-poaching-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-union-files-labor-practice-charges-against-kroger-and-albertsons-over-no-poaching-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Local union files labor practice charges against Kroger and Albertsons over \u2018no poaching agreement\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A customer removes her purchases at a Kroger grocery store in Flowood, Miss., in 2019. (Rogelio V. Solis\/Associated Press file)<\/span>Rogelio V. Solis<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The complaint was filed by UFCW Local 7 with the National Labor Relations Board. It came a day after Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser filed a lawsuit asking Denver District Court to block a proposed $24.6 billion merger between the two chains. In that lawsuit, Weiser revealed that a yearlong investigation by his office discovered an alleged agreement between the two grocery companies to not hire each other\u2019s employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the companies entered into such agreements and thought they could get away with it underscores why competition matters to consumers, to workers, to farmers and to our communities,\u201d Weiser said at a press conference Wednesday. \u201cIt also demonstrates why it\u2019s so important that we have vigilant antitrust enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that Kroger, the parent company of King Soopers, entered into the agreement over concerns of losing employees during the 10-day strike by King Soopers workers last year. The AG\u2019s lawsuit also seeks $1 million in civil penalties.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the union said it was \u201cdismayed to learn through AG Weiser\u2019s Complaint that Kroger and Albertsons entered into an unlawful agreement during Local 7\u2019s 2022 strike against King Soopers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite what these companies might say publicly about their motivations or the professed positives of this merger, their actions show otherwise,\u201d President of UFCW Local 7 Kim Cordova said in a release. \u201cThe leaders of these companies cannot be trusted to do right by their employees or customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, UFCW Local 7 said workers for Safeway were also negotiating new contracts with parent company Albertsons at the time of the agreement. The Union says they believed those negotiations were happening in \u201cseemingly good faith\u201d and accused the companies of using the agreement to \u201cgain leverage in contract negotiations\u201d with workers.<\/p>\n

Kroger denied the allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is disheartening for Coloradans that General Weiser would mischaracterize the facts,\u201d a Kroger spokesperson said in an email. \u201cThere was not then, and there is not now, non-solicitation or so-called no-poach agreements between Kroger and Albertsons. Employees at both companies regularly join our teams from \u2013 and exit our companies for opportunities to work at Albertsons, Kroger, Walmart, Amazon, Costco and other retailers as well as restaurants, food service companies, convenience stores, warehouses and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kroger operates 148 King Soopers and City Markets grocery stores in Colorado and is the largest chain in the state. Albertsons has 105 Safeway and Albertsons stores and is the state\u2019s third-largest grocery chain.<\/p>\n

Albertsons was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n

CPR\u2019<\/em>s Tony Gorman contributed to this report<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: Safeway is a financial supporter of CPR, but has no editorial influence<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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

A customer removes her purchases at a Kroger grocery store in Flowood, Miss., in 2019. (Rogelio V. Solis\/Associated Press file)Rogelio V. Solis The complaint was filed by UFCW Local 7 with the National Labor Relations Board. It came a day after Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser filed a lawsuit asking Denver District Court to block […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,120,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-colorado","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29196","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=29196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29196"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}