The Kroger company is the biggest retail grocery company in the United States. As the largest pure grocer in the United States (trailing only Walmart in overall grocery sales and at approximately double the revenue of number-two Albertsons.

Kroger owns many chains other than Kroger stores. Food 4 Less and Ralphs in metropolitan Los Angeles are two of its chains. When you shop in Ralphs, as I do, you see the Kroger name on many of its private label products.

The company has decided to close its stores in Long Beach (one Ralphs and one Food 4 Less) because the city council has ordered food markets to pay a $4-an-hour increase for grocery workers during the pandemic. The city called it hazards pay. This is not a permanent increase.

Kroger, which has enjoyed a big jump in profits during the pandemic, is pushing back. Customers and workers say that’s unfair. Kroger’s decision is most likely based on the fear that once the pay rate is increased it will never go back to the previous level and it will set precedent for the city and county of Los Angeles. That then could spread across the nation.  

Ronald Fong, president of the California Grocers Association trade group, which filed a lawsuit over the Long Beach ordinance, said the group tried to warn the city about “unintended consequences” of the measure.

This is the best example of workers versus employers that we have seen since the last strike of grocery workers. The 2003-04 Southland grocery strike dragged on for 141 days. That work stoppage was estimated by some analysts to have cost the supermarket chains as much as $2 billion, with locked-out workers losing $300 million in wages.

One shopper at the Ralphs store told an LA Times reporter she supports the hero pay, in part because her son works in the retail grocery business. “It’s hard work for him!” she said. “$4 isn’t much.”

With a 2020 Net Income of $1.64 billion it seems the company needs to become a responsible member of a society that is struggling with a pandemic.