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Union workers at Fred Meyer and QFC stores across Portland are expected to go on strike at 6 am Friday against their employers over what they allege are unfair labor practices.
Both grocery chains are owned by the Cincinnati-based Kroger Company.
The union representing the workers is United Food & Commercial Workers Local 555, which represents over 30,000 employees across four Western states, including Oregon and Washington. The union says Kroger won’t disclose full information about wages.
“We are entitled to information as part of the bargaining grievances processes, and employers are withholding that information in relation to the nutrition and combination checkout departments,” Miles Eshaia, a representative for the union, says. “We believe those workers are being underpaid, and they are refusing to provide information to prove otherwise.”
Already, the company’s effort to hire replacement workers has drawn ire.
In a statement Dec. 15, the union wrote: “It has come to our attention that Fred Meyer and QFC are recruiting and possibly hiring temporary replacement workers to work during a ULP strike.…The employers seem to be violating Oregon law when they recruit individuals to work as replacement workers. The employers have failed to tell these individuals that they are being hired as strikebreakers. Oregon law requires them to do so.”
Indeed, Fred Meyer has put signs outside of some of its stores advertising temporary work positions with no experience necessary. At the bottom it reads, “Willing to cross a picket line.” And an additional piece of paper Fred Meyer added later to the bottom of its signs made it clear the positions were temporary because of an impending strike: “In accordance with [Oregon laws], you are hereby notified that any offer of employment may be temporary based on the duration of the strike.”
Eshaia says the union’s attorney sent Fred Meyer a letter earlier this week alleging it was violating Oregon law by not originally making it clear that the positions available were to replace striking employees.
A Fred Meyer spokesperson did not respond to questions about the letter and its allegations, but said in a statement, “Since the union has decided to threaten a work stoppage in the middle of the negotiation process, and during an ongoing pandemic, we will do everything we can within the scope of the law to ensure that we are able to continue to provide access to food and essential items.
“At Fred Meyer and QFC, we take our responsibility to maintain access to food and essential items for the communities that we serve very seriously. Our goal is to achieve a fair and balanced outcome for our associates, and we will continue to negotiate for as long as it takes to do so.”
Eshaia expects the stores affected to be nearly vacant come Friday morning. “That’s certainly my hope,” he said.
“Workers have had enough. These are individuals who have had been told they’re essential employees throughout the pandemic, and you see their companies making record profit, and they’re not. These are people who shouldn’t have to go to food banks, that should not have to do the things they’re having to do to survive while their company makes record profits.”
In the final hours before the strike, Eshaia says signs are being made and picket captain training sessions are being held in the union office’s conference room: “We’re doing all the things we need to be doing to get ready for one of these things...this is serious.”
If a compromise cannot be reached tonight, the strike begins early Friday morning.
“We’re not leaving the table if they’re not,” says Eshaia.