The Kroger-owned grocery store chain Quality Food Centers will close two stores in Seattle next month, in part due to a new law requiring ‘danger payment’ grocery employees at the front which during the coronavirus pandemic.
Two QFC stores will be closed on April 24, a decision “accelerated by a new mandate from the Seattle City Council that requires certain employers to provide extra salaries for some, but not all, employees in the city front,” QFC said Tuesday. said in a statement. statement.
The decision led to a reprimand from one member of the council, who unanimously approved the law ordering larger grocery chains to temporarily increase workers’ pay by $ 4 per hour.
“Grocery workers had to cover emergency shifts, take on extra responsibilities and are five times more likely to contract COVID,” Teresa Mosqueda, a member of Seattle City Council, said in a statement. “These workers should not be pawns in a chess game.”
The law, which went into effect last week, draws legal challenges from the Northwest Grocers Association and the Washington Food Industry Association. A similar legal battle is taking place in California, where the California Grocers Association is challenging hazard compensation ordinances in Oakland, Montebello and Long Beach.
The local trade union United Food and Commercial Workers calls Kroger’s plan to close the two QFC stores “a transparent attempt to intimidate other local governments into passing ordinances that provide hazardous payments to workers in the leading grocery store.”
With another blow, Trader Joe’s responded to a wave of orders by temporarily increased payment with $ 4 per hour for its workers nationwide, but to cancel the traditional increases of the year. Similarly, PCC Community Markets also extended the $ 4 hourly increase to all of its nearly 1,500 employees at its 15 locations, in addition to the eight stores in Seattle affected by the mandate.
Kroger said earlier this month it would also closes a Ralphs and a Food 4 Less in Long Beach, California, after the city approved a regulation on hazardous payments that the grocery store chain called ‘deceived’.
Decided to end “hero payment”
Kroger put an end to what he calls last spring “hero pays,” a $ 2-hour bonus that the company briefly offered to its more than 500,000 employees as of April 2020. Instead, the company switched to paying $ 130 million in bonuses, with full-time workers earning $ 400 and part-time employees received $ 200.
Kroger recorded record earnings during the pandemic as more Americans chose to stay home, increasing food and other grocery sales. The company recorded more than $ 2.9 billion in operating profit in the third quarter of 2020, which generated an additional earnings of $ 1.2 billion compared to a year ago.
Kroger diverts some of the money to investors, with a $ 1 billion share return announced in September. On February 5, the company announced a dividend payment of $ 147 million, saying it expects to increase its dividend over time.