(Workers hand out leaflets outside QFC store on Rainier Avenue South in South Seattle)
Workers at a neighborhood supermarket say they’re worried about their jobs and your shopping experience if a big grocery merger is allowed.
The members of the United Food and Commercial Workers local 3000 say a merger as big as the one planned by QFC and Fred Meyer parent company Kroger and Albertsons means consolidation and store closures. Dominick Ojeda with UFCW says they’re not only worried about losing jobs, but neighborhoods losing stores and becoming “food deserts”. “We know that as these companies become larger, they not only push out their competition,” Ojeda says, “but smaller grocery stores that serve immigrant populations, that serve other communities that these large monopolies may not see as profitable.”
They also call the $4-billion dividend payment, now at the center of a Washington lawsuit, a cash grab while workers fight for better pay.
The companies have said the lawsuit has no merit and that the merger will mean lower prices for you.
