Grocery Store Workers in Denver fight to Raise Wages & Improve Staffing

Last week UFCW 3000 President Faye Guenther along with other union staff joined UFCW local 7’s Bargaining Team in Denver as they sat down with Albertsons/Safeway and Kroger in their fight for a fair contract. This collaboration between the grocery store workers in Colorado and the over 25,000 grocery store members of UFCW 3000, whose contracts expire early next year is an important signal of strength and unity in our fight for Better Wages, Better Staffing, Better Stores.

Power of Partnership

One key part of our strategy when bargaining with these massive national grocery corporations is partnering with other locals. In addition to Local 7 in the Rockies, we continue to team up with southern California Locals 770 and 324 – both of which also had their Presidents join us in Denver last week. Partnerships are nothing new but they take work and we are proud of the efforts so far. Locally in the Puget Sound area we have officially announced that Teamsters 38 from Snohomish County will join us for negotiations in 2025.

A Sign of things to come

In Colorado last week the companies continued pushing proposals that would erode workers’ contracts and make working conditions even harder than they already are. Instead of addressing underlying staffing, wage, safety and scheduling problems, their proposals would largely make an already bad situation worse. What happens in Colorado is important because these companies often make similar proposals here. It does not need to be this way. In fact, we presented evidence showing that while both companies are actually doing very well financially, recent reductions in hours and staffing have undercut what those financial numbers could have been. Paying workers better and adequately staffing stores would not only make life better for workers and customers, the data also shows it would improve the bottom line and increase sales as well.

Make Your Voice Heard

Starting today, we are launching our new online survey for you as one of our UFCW 3000 grocery store members. As we prepare for upcoming contract negotiations early next year, we want to get updated input from members about your priorities, concerns and hopes.

Click here to complete the survey and you will qualify for a drawing for one of five $100 Fred Meyer gift cards.

Every three years your contract is renegotiated by a team made up of mostly workers just like you. At this point, we are launching this survey to both get important updated opinions from you about your experience in the store, as well as your hopes to improve our contract. As a reminder, our contract negotiations are around the terms of employment, working conditions, staffing, safety, scheduling, wages, health care, retirement, and many other issues.

We will be negotiating our contract again in partnership with Teamsters 38 and those members are also filling out the exact same survey. We want to get all surveys filled out before the busy Thanksgiving week begins, so please take a few minutes and click the button below to start the survey in order to qualify for a drawing of one of five $100 Fred Meyer gift cards.