Food4Less is a high volume, California-based division of Kroger that caters to value-oriented shoppers. The busy stores are reportedly among the most profitable in their respective divisions. Yet after years of being underpaid and overworked to keep up with post-pandemic customer demand, workers at Food4Less are standing together for better pay rates and store safety measures.
Kroger is the U.S.A.’s largest full service supermarket, with over 10% national market share and over 20% market share in most of California and the west coast. As a grocer, it is second only to Walmart in sales. Banners such as Ralph’s, Smith’s, Harris Teeter, QFC, Fred Meyer and Vitacost are among the other chains acquired by and absorbed through Kroger’s aggressive expansion strategies over the years. While growth has slowed recently, the grocer sold over $150 billion in groceries in 2023 and generated over $2.2 billion in profits. The chain has grown over 20% in sales since the pre-Covid era because, like most grocers, they took advantage of supply chain strains to raise prices above the rate of received costs increases, leading to record profits throughout 2021, 2022 and 2023. Kroger is also among the most tech-savvy retailers, with extremely effective customer data acquisition, omnichannel fulfillment, loyalty programs, retail media and digital marketing that also informs their product assortment, merchandising, pricing and store layouts.
Kroger and rival Albertsons announced a merger in October 2022, alongside a store divestment plan to sell varied locations to C&S Wholesale, a $30 billion a year wholesaler that also operates a handful of its own stores. The $25 billion combination has been opposed by regulators, employees, lawmakers, grocery unions, community groups and even some suppliers. The FTC, alongside over a dozen states’ attorneys general, have filed lawsuits to prevent the merger.
Kroger is also the largest unionized grocer by a longshot. While rival Walmart has kept wages low and resisted unionization attempts, tens of thousands of Kroger employees have affiliated with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) locals, making UFCW the second largest private sector union after the UPS-affiliated Teamsters. Many UFCW contracts have come up for renewal in recent years, with workers threatening and even going on strike in parts of Colorado, California, and the Midwest.
Stayce Martin is a cashier at a Los Angeles Food 4 Less with over 30 years of service.
Food4Less occupies a unique market niche in the California grocery sector. Unlike other Kroger banners on the west coast such as Ralph’s and QFC that are more middle market or even premium in their pricing and assortment, Food4Less services very diverse, low income communities. Kroger has made major public commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion to appease shareholders but also to keep on top of customer expectations regarding social responsibility. The Food4less contract negotiations are where this rubber meets the road.
Food4Less employees are mostly Black and Latin American, disproportionately women, and vastly underpaid relative to their peers at other Kroger banners, sometimes by up to $4-$7 an hour to do the same tasks. Grocery clerks at Food4Less earn 16%-30% less than their Ralph’s peers, depending on their seniority. Over 78% of Food4Less workers are Latin American, and over 52% have children. They live in some of the most expensive cities in the country, where living wages, according to MIT, are over $53,000 for single households and far above $100,000 for households with kids. Kroger’s CEO makes over $15 million a year, a 500 to 1 pay ratio to the median Kroger employee. These inequities contribute to why over 78% of Kroger workers have been food insecure and more than 1 in 7 have been homeless. The Food4Less workers have mobilized to change these circumstances for the better.
Nearly 6,000 workers across 7 UFCW locals from central California to the Mexican border are negotiating new contracts. They are pushing for fair wages and improved safety and security measures in their stores. The company has been pushing back and employees are mulling going on strike.
Kathy Finn is President of UFCW Local 770, one of the union locals involved in negotiations. “Food 4 Less workers, who are majority Black and Latinx and serve majority Black and Brown communities, are doing the same work as their Ralphs counterparts who serve more affluent communities, but they aren’t getting paid the same. In fact, they turn a higher profit for Kroger, but they get paid less. It’s pretty much like racial redlining.”
Stayce Martin is a cashier at a Los Angeles Food 4 Less with over 30 years of service. “This contract campaign is about equity and fairness. We’ve been undervalued and understaffed for way too long. We’re not only providing for our communities, but we’re building wealth for Kroger with our labor. It’s time that we get a fair contract that recognizes us as the essential workers that we are.”
Priscilla Zubia is a Service Deli Clerk at Food 4 Less in Los Angeles.
The UFCW Food 4 Less/Foods Co. Bargaining Committee gave Forbes the following statement, “While we are trying to bargain a fair contract for all 6,000 Food 4 Less co-workers, the company has engaged in multiple labor violations from discrimination and unlawful surveillance of workers, to prohibiting us from participating in union activity, unilaterally changing our contract, and blocking us from talking to our union representatives. These actions are nothing more than an attempt to strong-arm us into accepting an offer that is less than what we deserve and less than what their parent company, Kroger, provides other grocery workers in the area. Everyone deserves a wage that reflects their work and no one deserves to be bullied at their job.”
Kroger recently issued its own statement about the contract negotiations, “We are negotiating with local UFCW, which is an essential part of the collective bargaining agreement… Food 4 Less looks forward to continuing to negotiate in good faith a contract that puts more money in our associates’ pockets, maintains industry leading healthcare and a retirement for our associates’ future. We will continue to balance our desire to invest in our associates, while keeping groceries affordable for our customers and maintaining a sustainable business for the future. Our associates are the most important piece of our business and we will continue to negotiate for an agreement that is in the best interest of our people.”