The picket lines for King Soopers stores in the Denver area had fallen on Tuesday and negotiators of the company and trade union were prepared to go back to the negotiating table after agreing to end a 12-day strike.
Joe Kelley, president of Kroger ownership King Soopers and City Market, said that contract negotiations could resume 27 February. An agreement announced on Monday by the supermarket chain and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 calls for 100 days without strike activities and all steps to implement what King Soopers rather called the “last, best, final” offer.
“So the Bottom Line is the picketboards last night at 11:50 am, let’s get everyone back to work on Thursday at 5 am,” said Kelley. “Let us sign an agreement that will cost us for the next 100 days until the end of May.”
Kelley does not believe that it will take so long to approve a new contract. “I told Kim Cordova, and I think she agrees that we can get this thing done if we can get the right people at the table.”
Cordova, president of the Union, sounded a more cautious tone. “It’s not over yet. We have at least part of what we wanted to achieve. “
The trade union held King Soopers responsible for her unfair work practices and raised issues to the summons of the understaffing of the stores, Cordova said. Insufficient staff is a problem in the supermarket industry, but especially at King Soopers, she added.
King Soopers has disputed claims of understaffing. Kelley said that the company has more employees than three years ago, the last time that the trade union struck against the company established in Colorado.
But Kelley said that King Soopers is ‘more than happy’ to consider ideas for tackling problems with the workforce.
“We feel that we have an excellent offer on the table. The problem is that we have not received a response from the union, “said Kelley. “Next week we would expect that they will respond to that offer.”
The strike that started on 6 February when around 10,000 employees walked the job in the Denver area, was characterized by both parties who submitted unfair complaints of the labor practice to the National Labor Relations Board. The trade union said that the company’s proposal included an illegal provision to deduce money from the pensioners’ health care fund, making the entire contract offer illegal.
King Soopers submitted a complaint that accused the Union of postponing negotiations and not negotiating in good faith. The negotiations ended on January 17 after the contracts of the trade union with the company have expired and trade union traders decided not to present the proposal of King Sobers to employees.
Union members in Pueblo, Colorado Springs and in Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson Counties, as well as in Boulder and Louisville voted to authorize a strike. The strike, which is expected to last two weeks, met 79 stores in the Denver area and in Pueblo.
Kelley said that King Soopers and Union representatives spoke for a few hours on Sunday about what the company called a “peaceful relationship agreement” to breathe new life into the negotiations and end the strike. He said that an agreement was reached after King Soopers offered to ensure that employees’ health care would continue, even if they had not worked enough days to achieve benefits.
Cordova said the trade union stated that no one would expire health care before he would close a deal with the company. Yet she said that no members were immediately in danger of losing cover.
“They could not weaken our line, so they tried to scare employees that they would lose their benefits,” said Cordova.
The chairman of the Union believes that the rejection by a judge of most of what King Soopers sought in a temporarily limiting order has encouraged the company to resume negotiations. Last week, Judge Sarah B. Wallace in Denver ruled against the most restrictions that King Soopers asked about striking employees who picks stores.
“I hope they learned a lesson and I hope they actually sit down and recognize the employees as stakeholders in their company,” said Cordova.
Originally published: