LOS ANGELES — After a series of failed corporate initiatives and years of hostile labor relations, the announcement, March 3, that Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen has been ousted is welcome news to UFCW Local Unions. McMullen weakened the company with his strategy of replacing workers with giant, automated warehouses that didn’t work as promised and thousands of self-checkout scanners that frustrated customers. Though that strategy benefited Wall Street investors in the short term with a $7.5 billion stock payout that McMullen orchestrated in what now seems like a last-ditch effort to save his own job, customers and workers suffered. This leadership change represents an opportunity for the company to adopt a new approach centered on reinvesting in its staff and stores to improve customer service and grow sales.
“Now is the time for the changes we have been pushing for: Kroger should stop investing in failed tech and mergers and instead invest in stores and communities with lower prices, more stores, and workers with better staffing and better wages,” said Faye Guenther, President of UFCW 3000 in Washington State. “These changes, especially addressing the staffing crisis in our stores, are what our locals are calling for in our contract negotiations this spring in Colorado, California and Washington.”
The coalition of UFCW 770 locals was the most outspoken and consistent opponent of the proposed $25 billion merger between Kroger and Albertsons/Safeway. UFCW 770 were the ones who fought for the right to wear masks early in COVID-19 and earned hazard pay. Kroger retaliated by closing stores in Seattle, LA and Long Beach, the very cities where hazard pay had been passed. UFCW 770 unions collectively coordinated contract negotiations in 2022 and underwrote the “Hungry at the Table” report by the Economic Roundtable that exposed the high levels of homelessness and hunger of Kroger workers. That report, alongside a January 2022 strike in Colorado and massive preparations for strikes in the west in the states of California and Washington all contributed to significant gains in wages.
“Those gains we made in the 2022 negotiations were nowhere near enough for workers, and the ongoing trend of reduced staffing in stores has made a bad situation worse. We have deli and meat departments with reduced hours, unstocked shelves, long check-out lines, and low morale”, said Kathy Finn, President of Local 770 in Southern California. “Adding insult to this injury to workers and customers, evidence that came out in the merger trials showed how Kroger was gouging customers with high prices. All this needs to change, and a new CEO can be an opportunity for change that improves stores for workers, shoppers and communities across the US.”