Elected Leaders Stand with Grocery Workers! Open letter to Ron Sargent, Kroger Interim Chief Executive Officer

September 1, 2025 
Ron Sargent 
Interim Chief Executive Officer 
Chairman of the Board 
The Kroger Company 
1014 Vine Street 
Cincinnati, OH 45202-1100  

Dear Mr. Sargent, 

On Labor Day, a day set aside to honor the contributions of working people, we are writing to express our deep concern and opposition to your company’s announced closure of four Fred Meyer stores in the Puget Sound region — in Lake City (Seattle), Everett, Kent, and Redmond. These closures will result in the loss of nearly 700 union jobs and will leave working-class communities with fewer options for affordable groceries, worsening food insecurity. 

You have attempted to justify these closures by pointing to retail theft. The facts tell a different story. Retail theft has actually declined at the impacted stores.  

The real reasons for these closures derive from your corporate choices: years of underinvestment in stores, chronic understaffing, and funneling billions of dollars to Wall Street instead of reinvesting in workers and communities.  

Between 2018 and 2022 alone, you spent $9.2 billion on stock buybacks and dividends, and just last year you announced another $7.5 billion buyback. At the same time, you cut labor hours by more than 14% per store since 2019, creating a 21% staffing shortfall across your operations. 

We cannot accept the narrative that these closures are inevitable. They are the result of your deliberate corporate strategy that puts short-term payouts to investors over the long-term stability of workers, shoppers, and our neighborhoods. Abandoning working-class communities in this way is unacceptable. 

We stand with the nearly 700 workers whose jobs are on the line and the thousands of families who will lose access to essential groceries. As elected leaders, we will not sit idly by while you make decisions that destabilize our communities. 

We call on you to: 

• Halt the announced store closures and immediately engage with workers, community leaders, and local governments about alternatives. 

• Reinvest in staffing, safety, and store upkeep instead of funneling billions into Wall Street. 

• Release store-level data so the public can understand the true drivers behind these decisions. 

Our communities deserve better than to be abandoned by one of the nation’s largest and most profitable grocery corporations. On this Labor Day, we urge you to reverse course and put people before profits. 

Sincerely, 

King County Council 

Council President Girmay Zahilay  
Councilmember Claudia Balducci  
Councilmember Rod Dembowski 
Councilmember Jorge Barón  
Councilmember Sarah Perry 
Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda  

Snohomish County Council  

Councilmember Megan Dunn  
Councilmember Sam Low 

Lake City  

State Senator Javier Valdez (LD 46)
Rep. Gerry Pollett (LD 46) 
Rep. Darya Farivar (LD 46)  
Seattle City Councilmember Debora Juarez 
Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck
Seattle School Board Member Joe Mizrahi 

Kent 

Kent Councilmember Satwinder Kaur 
Rep. Chris Stearns (LD 47) 
Rep. Debra Entenman (LD 47) 
Public Hospital District #1 Commissioner Dustin Lambro 

Redmond  

Redmond City Council President Vanessa Kritzker 
Redmond City Council VP Jessica Forsythe 
Redmond City Councilmember & State Rep. Osman Salahuddin (LD 48) 

Everett 

Everett Councilmember Paula Rhyne   
Everett Councilmember Don Schwab
Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin 
Everett Councilmember & State Rep. Mary Fosse (LD 38)  
Sen. June Robinson (LD 38) 
Rep. Julio Cortes (LD 48) 

An open letter to Governor Inslee, Secretary Wiesman, Vice Admiral Bono from Washington's front line Unions

April 1, 2020
RE: COVID-19 Transparency of Response Efforts and Working Conditions

Governor Inslee, Secretary Wiesman, Vice Admiral Bono,

We are writing to thank you for your leadership during this unprecedented crisis and to ask for your help to address a number of ongoing concerns. As unions representing workers who are on the frontlines fighting this pandemic, we are hearing from our members daily about their genuine commitment to serving our communities combined with their very real fears of getting sick, potentially infecting others, and of the critical need for their protection. As you well know, without our health care workers and emergency responders, we will fail to adequately respond in the days ahead.

We ask for your immediate help in the following areas:

1. Personal Protective Equipment and Supplies

Over the last several weeks, we have communicated our request for more transparency in the supply chain of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and supplies. We have heard that the state has received some significant shipments of PPE from the Strategic National Stockpile and other sources. Yet, those supplies have not made it into the hands of frontline health care workers and emergency responders.

As the unions representing workers who so desperately need PPE for their own safety, we ask that you provide a weekly report of amount of PPE at the EOC, where it is going, and to whom it is being distributed (down to the facility level). We also ask that you request from the hospitals and health providers under the DOH fourpart triage list a weekly report of PPE on hand.

Those of us representing health care workers are hearing stories from our members of supplies of N-95 masks and other PPE being locked in cabinets rather than provided to those on the frontlines. In the law enforcement community, department leadership is taking PPE supplies from jail facilities to offer some limited resources to officers; other departments are directing supply officers to use “traditional purchasing chains” for needed PPE. Neither of these directives are sustainable or solution oriented. It is critical that we understand the supply chain and where PPE can be utilized by health care workers and first responders now, rather than being saved for later.

2. COVID-19 Testing

Many counties are prioritizing testing of health care workers and first responders; this is both appreciated and appropriate. However, we are not receiving updates from counties or the state on the number of tests provided to health care workers and first responders nor the results of those tests. We ask that you provide more transparency in testing, including a weekly report of a) how long it is taking to receive results, b) how many health care workers/first responders are being tested, and c) the results of those tests (i.e., number of positives and negatives). We also ask that the Governor’s Office inform EMS that first responders must be prioritized for testing, especially those with symptoms or workplace exposure. Test processing for first responders and health care workers should be expedited.

3. Use of Appropriate Leave

As our members are exposed to COVID-19 on the job, there is no system-level response. A standard statewide protocol for exposure response, testing, and quarantine is urgently needed. This should include the use of appropriate leave – frontline responders should not be required to use accrued paid time off, vacation, or sick leave benefits while on quarantine. We ask that a statewide standard for leave be adopted that includes use of paid administrative leave or workers’ compensation with paid administrative leave making up the difference – in each case, when quarantined, isolated, or treated, employees should be kept whole in terms of salary and benefits.

We also ask that the Governor clarify his earlier order regarding L&I claims filed by health care workers and first responders – our members need clarification that the decision to self-quarantine due to workplace exposure without the specific direction of a health care provider or employer administration is allowable. We strongly believe that presumption of workplace illness should be made for health care workers and first responders.

4. Protection of Vulnerable Workers

National COVID-19 guidelines tell us that those in vulnerable categories – those over 60 years of age, pregnant women, and people with underlying health conditions – need to be protected. In a recent press conference, Governor Inslee stated in the strongest terms that workers in these vulnerable categories or those who live with vulnerable people should be allowed to either work from home or take extended leave, continue to be paid, and have their job available to them when this crisis ends. While acknowledging that this policy did not yet carry the force of law, Governor Inslee clearly and unequivocally gave this direction to businesses.

Despite this, many of our members have been told they must remain on the job – including in emergency rooms and Intensive Care Units where the highest volume of COVID-19 patients are treated. Likewise, first responders within fire and law enforcement who fall into the category of vulnerable workers must also be given accommodation during this emergency. We ask that you make clear to our employers that vulnerable workers must be protected through reasonable and safe accommodation or by staying home.

We greatly appreciate our partnership with you during this crisis, and we look forward to working with you to ensure the above concerns are addressed post haste.

Sincerely,