After a massive strike involving over 8400 workers over 10 days.
Kroger employees have finally won themselves a new contract.
This is an update on a story that we covered in regard to striking workers in
Denver colorado.
And the update is super exciting, so let me give you the details.
Workers at the Denver area,
King Soopers grocery stores approved a new three-year contract on Monday.
That includes wage increases of more than $5 an hour for some employees.
The contract also creates more full time employment opportunities and
more stringent workplace safety measures.
Now, remember when we originally covered the story and
why the workers were striking in the first place.
It had to yes, do what the wages, but also had to do with
the fact that the employer was purposely avoiding full time shifts.
So they didn't have to pay for certain benefits and they have now been able to
handle that matter effectively as a result of the workers organizing and striking.
And just to be clear, King Soopers is a division of Kroger's.
Okay, so Kroger supermarkets,
it's the same company under Ralphs and King supers and all of that.
Now, this shows how organizing works.
In some cases, it also shows the power of labor unions,
especially in the context of major corporations like Kroger's.
Strikes absolutely works, says Kim Cordova, she says that it shows
the company that they can't run without workers were hoping that we set the bar so
that other workers in this country will follow suit.
So that's one of the reasons why we cover these stories, Francesca.
It's a way to kind of inspire people especially as they're let down over and
over again by the federal government.
There are ways that you can take action, especially in your immediate environment.
Yeah, also talk about the mainstream media like complete
blackout when it comes to successful strikes, right?
They really never talked about it.
I think the mainstream media is good at talking about health care workers.
They're better at talking about nurses, and doctors.
But when it comes to the essential workers that they participated in the framing and
the rhetoric around as we all did after when the pandemic began.
Grocery workers were part of those essential workers, right?
And they grocery stores were staying open, grocery stores made hand over fist
billions like windfall in the last couple of years thanks to the pandemic.
And so guess what?
I expect your workers to demand more and
if you keep on telling people they're essential.
They're going to want to be paid a livable wage.
And once again, if our minimum wage actually kept pace with inflation,
it would be over $20 right now, let's understand it hasn't budged since 2009.
So of course you're going to get this and good on them and it is not easy.
It's cold out in Colorado.
Your CEO of Kroger's took home like $23 million 2020 is like a bonus.
Meanwhile like all their hazard pay got cut, I mean it's ridiculous.
So, I'm glad.
>> That's exactly right.
I actually wanna remind the audience about the hazard pay situation because in
the beginning of the pandemic since they're essential workers and
they had to really put themselves out there.
put themselves in risk in order to ensure that we still had, you know,
the ability to buy groceries.
They got hazard pay but it was later cut off.
So, first let me give you some details about their wage and
what Francesca is saying about inflation is so important.
Wage analysis of the top paid King Soopers food clerk in Colorado between 2010 and
2020 showed a 16% increase to $19.16 an hour, wow, that sounds pretty good.
Except adjusted for inflation though, that's a 3% reduction in pay.
Kroger offered hazard pay to workers after the pandemic began but
ended the payment after just two months.
That's it, two months despite the chain's sales going up by 30% in 2020.
And this was one of my favorite comments from KIM card over.
He she's the head of the union representing these workers.
She said this, the companies were thriving but our workers didn't thrive,
know what our workers got.
COVID attacked, beat up, spit on, slapped, overworked and
the company, they did great.
They did absolutely great sitting behind their desk doing their job by Zoom,
and let me just be clear, Kroger has a significant net worth of $84 billion.
And the company's CEOo makes $22 million a year.
And so clearly they could afford to improve the working conditions for
the workers in addition to giving them the compensation that they're asking for
that they deserve.
But remember simply asking politely for, it doesn't go far enough.
These workers had to strike in order to get what they wanted and they had
the protection that's offered by the union representing them in order to do so.
So again, we share these stories with you because while things might seem hopeless.
It's also important to celebrate the winds that we're seeing on a company to
company level on a local level.
For instance, because people are still taking action and
they're making some serious progress as a result of that.
But I'm gonna end this with one quote because a columnist for the Denver Post,
some woman named Krista Kafer.
Who's a big proponent of school choice said this about crossing the picket line.
She's very proud of herself, she crossed the picket line.
She was like, I did it everyone, I'm very proud.
She said this in regard to it, doing so
I thought nothing of crossing the picket line at King Soopers last week
before an agreement was reached and the picket stopped.
What a job pays as a matter of market forces, compassionate capitalism,
not a contest between good guys and bad guys.
I'm not gonna serve as a prop in that play.
If Kroger employees don't get the raise is they want,
they owe it to themselves to check out new opportunities elsewhere.
As my dad taught me, you're not owed anything in this life.
Just remember statements like that when you hear Mark Cuban claiming
that compassionate capitalism is a thing.
It's not a thing, there's no morality involved, it's all about profit.
>> There's so much disdain Anna like I just feel like that's the same kind of
person that will like will, stage a conniption fit, like go ape.
Because somebody got their latte order wrong, like that's the kind
of entitled attitude of if you don't like it, it's the, it's a love it.
Or leave it attitude whenever anyone criticizes like we should our
government's behavior are employers behavior just because you wanna fix it,
you should leave.
And by the way, let's remember that people are resigning on mass and they,
there are workers and
a lot of grocery stores that are trying to sweeten the pot to attract more workers.
So yeah, I also wanna say that the other thing that I think about when these
strikes are successful is the fact that there are a lot of dark moments in strikes
where you don't know if it's gonna be successful.
And in Kroger's case,
they try to get a restraining order against people who are on the picket line.
Their own workers trying to get a restraining order for
them just being outside protesting, right?
I mean, you've got Amazon's changing stoplights outside
of Beston more Alabama where they tried to unionize at a warehouse.
So there's so many tactics and at the end of the day they pulled through and
they can continue to pull through.
And not only that though.
And you know this, when you met the women in the labor movement,
man that's galvanizing.
Because there's probably a lot of other workers who were like nay saying from
the beginning and now they're like, my God, look at that, look at that,
and then it's politicizing and galvanizing.
>> Galvanizing is, is the right word.
Not only in the context of their workplace but across the country, and that's why
we're seeing this labor militancy for the first time in literally decades?
And that's the only thing that's really giving me real hope.
People ask me often times like,
how do you manage to remain sane with all the terrible news you cover every day.
And it's because there are wins and we need to acknowledge them and
celebrate them when we see them.
And this is a good example of that.