LONG BEACH, California – Kroger Co. will close two supermarkets in Southern California in response to a local ordinance requiring additional pay for certain grocery workers working during the pandemic.
The decision the company announced Monday follows a unanimous vote last month by Long Beach City Council to mandate a 120-day increase of $ 4 per hour for grocery store employees with at least 300 employees nationwide and more than 15 in Long Beach.
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said it will close a Ralphs market and a Food 4 Less on April 17, the Press-Telegram reported.
“As a result of the City of Long Beach’s decision to pass a regulation requiring additional pay for grocery workers, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close the long-term retail locations in Long Beach,” the company said in a statement. statement.
The statement added, “This deluded action by Long Beach City Council goes beyond the traditional negotiation process and applies to some, but not all, grocery workers in the city.”
A city statement characterized Kroger’s decision as “a shame for employees, shoppers and the company.”
A similar pay rise has been approved by the City of Montebello and is being considered in Los Angeles and Pomona. Farther north, Oakland approved a grocery worker at risk on Tuesday, while other Bay Area cities, including San Jose and Berkeley, were considering similar regulations.
A lawsuit filed by the California Grocers Association alleges that the Long Beach ordinance interferes with the collective bargaining process between supermarkets and unions representing workers.
An official for the association said on Monday that an increase of $ 4 an hour represents a 28% increase in labor costs.
“There is no way that grocers can absorb that big cost increase without compensation elsewhere, as grocers operate with razor-thin margins and many stores are already operating in the red,” said the association’s president and CEO Ron Fong in a statement.
The Long Beach ordinance was passed at a Jan. 19 meeting at which councilors and Mayor Robert Garcia said many supermarkets gave employees risky compensation during the early stages of the pandemic, but phased it out later.
“These people who work in these markets and these supermarkets are heroes,” Garcia said at the time. “This is nothing new. They have received this kind of extra reward in the past and if they earned it in the past, they earn it today. “
The Los Angeles proposal went forward on Tuesday with a city council vote in favor of the city attorney who drafted an ordinance calling for $ 5 an hour in additional risk compensation for employees of major grocery and drug stores. The council requested that the draft be submitted for a final vote as soon as possible.