Employees of 10 King Soopers stores in the Colorado Springs region voted on Friday to authorize a strike against the grocer King Soopers, joining union employees in the Denver metro region who also voted for strike on Thursday.
According to United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, King Sooper Colorado Springs Meat elected 97.7% to authorize a strike and the retail trade voted 95.8%. Employees were led by the union to “continue to present themselves to work until further notice”.
Friday, employees of the Colorado Springs region experienced three voting and discussion sessions, with a standing room only at the start of each meeting, according to several participants. The gazette and all other media were not authorized inside the room during the sessions due to the concerns of employees concerning reprisals and privacy.
Local section 7 pleads for adequate hours and increased security for employees in stores along the Front Range, from Boulder to Pueblo.
The union employees agreed to be against King Soopers after the negotiations between the union leaders and the grocer stopped while contracts in the region expired. The union can now call a strike when and if they wish, without notice.
There remains a chance that an agreement will be concluded before employees are starting to officially strike.
Apart from Friday meetings, four members of the negotiation committee organized by local section 7 spoke to the Gazette of their main concerns and proposals. The members of the union submitted more than 80 proposals, according to Conor Hall, a cake from the Boulder delicatessen.
The two main concerns of state employees were inadequate hours to perform the tasks assigned to them and the presumed lack of safety protocols, sometimes going hand in hand.
“One of our tasks is to clean cold meats and they are supposed to be done every four hours, but that does not happen,” said Hall. “There is simply no time for that.”
Hall said that the appropriate lack of cleaning throughout the day, especially in food areas, can cause customer health contamination and health risks.
“We come out of the bat like the epidemic of the wild boar, where all this Bologna was contaminated by Listeria. Lettuce is systematically contaminated by Listeria,” said Hall. “These are the results of not being able to clean properly.”
King Soopers representatives did not respond to a Gazette email Friday asking for an answer to the so-called health and safety problems.
Reyna Carpenter, director of seafood in a location in Pueblo, said that the appropriate lack of hours also led to poor training for new employees. Employees in the Pueblo-Devoit region voted on Saturday to decide if they also strike.
“There is no longer any shoulder shoulder formation; let’s go,” said Carpenter.
Carpenter and Hall said that the highest people had said that their departments were in fact overtaking, and not in sub-employment.
In an interview with a gazette journalist on Friday, King Soopers said that personnel problems were under resolution. President Joe Kelley said the stores were more personally equipped than four years ago.
King Soopers is preparing for the strike of frontage workers
Chris Lacey, responsible for services in Littleton, said that similar concerns were true for their location concerning staff, but another major priority is store safety, customers and employees.
In Colorado Springs, a man was shot by ball near the gas pumps in a King Soopers parking lot on January 20. One of the many union proposals asked the company to alert the staff if there is a dangerous emergency situation, such as a fire or fire fire.
The King Soopers parking lot, the victim of the shooting, remembered like a father and a son
“This is an article without cost,” echoes Reyna and Hall echo.
Lacey told the Gazette that one of his fears with a new contract is that security problems would be pushed next to other proposals.
“I’m afraid they will take more liberties with security,” said Lacey. “Whenever we provide them with security, they tell us that they believe that their stores are safe.”
As a service manager, one of the largest complaints he hears customers is long lines and the inability to find an employee who is free to help them.
“I have the impression that they will take more hours, which will leave us even more staff, which will lead to more assault and danger,” said Lacey.
Another concern raised by the employee of Colorado Springs, David Burciago, is the future of retirement services. Burciago has been working with King Soopers since 1980.
“I am close to retirement, so when they remove money from the advantages of these retirees, it has been affecting me now,” said Burciago.
In the same interview with Gazette on Friday, Kelley also denied that the company is trying to retreat pensions, not to increase enough wages for most workers or to withdraw benefits.
“We don’t take money. In fact, our health care plan is green. Our reserves are in green. Our pensions are fully funded and our reserves are fully funded, ”said Kelley.
With decades to his credit, Burciago said that King Soopers was a different business, focusing on the family and serving the community.
“You had the opportunity and the hours and time to provide this. You were not always at the forefront of finishing all these tasks,” said Burciago.
Although it is not a main concern, many of the members of the negotiation committee spoke of an unfair salary. According to previous Gazette reports, an offer by King Soopers included the increase in time wages of $ 4.50 in the next four years, about $ 1 more each year, for the best associated positions.
However, the “best partners” are only a small part of all the staff, said union officials.
“This is part of one of the unfair work practices,” said Kim Cordova, president of the local section 7. “We are not going to accept the agreement; this only applies to a small group. Thousands of workers will see (little or no increase.) “
Kelley also refuted Cordova’s claim, saying that workers who are not “best partners” still get increases according to the number of hours in which they worked in the company thanks to a rate of progression.
Cordova also alleys that the grocer was “randomly and selectively” adding wages to employees in “richer” neighborhoods.
“They do not add them to all the others,” said Cordova.
The most recent King Soopers strike took place in 2022. The strike totaled more than 8,000 workers and has only covered Denver metro stores. Cordova said on Friday that one of the reasons for the 2022 strike was the wage gap in stores.
The contract which ended the strike expired in January alongside several other regional contracts.
If Pueblo follows suit with Colorado Springs and the Denver region, this could affect more than 10,000 workers.
“I want it to be better when I go,” said Burciago. “I believe that if the company is really interested in what we feel and the things we ask, I think we can certainly come together.”
Bernadette Berdychowski from Gazette contributed to this report.