Associates and customers will ultimately be the actual victims of forced grocery store closures due to the Long Beach city council's decision to offer "hero pay" to food store workers across the board, according to a Ralph’s spokesperson
“The irreparable harm that will come to employees and local citizens is a direct result of the City of Long Beach’s attempt to pick winners and losers, is deeply unfortunate,” said John Votava, director of corporate affairs for Ralph’s, in a statement online. “The misguided action by the Long Beach City Council oversteps the traditional bargaining process and only applies to some, but not all, grocery workers in the city.”
Ralph’s and Food 4 Less are operated by The Kroger Co. and on Wednesday of last week, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) held a rally in front of the Food 4 Less in Long Beach, which is scheduled to close, to protest the closure.
“I’m just so saddened by these two grocery stores that are closing,” said Ron Fong, president of the California Grocers Association (CGA). “I think some focus needs to be on that because two stores closing means more than 200 employees are out of a job.”
Ralph’s and Food 4 Less announced last week that it would close 25% of its stores in Long Beach following the enactment of the "Premium Pay for Grocery Workers Ordinance” by the Long Beach city council, which increases pay temporarily for grocery store workers by $4 an hour because they arguably face greater exposure to COVID-19 infection on the job.
“Workers will push back on Kroger’s blatant attack and retaliation on essential grocery workers who have been risking their lives, and the lives of their families, to serve their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic,” UFCW said in a statement online.
UFCW claims that Kroger Co. has earned $2.6 billion in profits during the pandemic.
“Ralph's is one of UFCW’s biggest union members,” Fong told the Southern California Record. “The union certainly has their own spin on this whole issue and they've got their issues with Ralph's and their collective bargaining agreement but we are not involved in that process.”
The Ralph's store located at 3380 N. Los Coyotes Diagonal and the Food 4 Less store at 2185 E. South Street are scheduled to close on April 17.
NBC Los Angeles reported that it was the union that introduced the idea of instituting hero pay to the city council.
“This is the most aggressive that they have been in trying to circumvent the real collective bargaining process for union stores,” Fong said. “It's very aggressive and it's not the right thing to do. They're myopic in their reasoning and they have not considered all of the unintended consequences.”
As previously reported in the Southern California Record, CGA sued Long Beach over the additional payroll requirements alleging that a federal preemption precludes city councils from raising worker pay.
Further, hero pay ordinances of up to $5 an hour for grocery workers could raise food prices by some $400 a year for the typical family of four, according to an economic impact study issued by Mike Genest, former Director of the California Department of Finance and Brad Williams, former chief economist for the California State Legislative Analyst’s Office.
“We warned Long Beach of three possible unintended consequences,” Fong added. “One is store closures. The second is cutting worker hours because reducing hours would reduce shifts. The third is passing on increased food prices to consumers. All three are very, very bad unintended consequences. Long Beach did not listen to us. They thought we were bluffing and sure enough, we have two large stores closing in Long Beach."