An assistant front end supervisor from Dallas-Fort Worth’s UFCW Local 1000 speaks to his experience working for Kroger, and explains the conclusion he’s come to about how to effect meaningful change in he and his coworkers’ working conditions.
I’ve been working the front end at Kroger for three years, either as a cashier or as an assistant front end supervisor. I enjoy the work and appreciate my job, but lately the high turnover, low pay, and potentially dangerous working conditions have been weighing on me.
My background for years was in general labor: welding, small engine repair, landscaping. I also spent several years working in call centers but ultimately burned out on that kind of work. Eventually I had to leave that industry if I wanted to keep my sanity.
When I moved from call center work to working for Kroger, I took a big pay cut but immediately loved the work. I worked as a cashier for about four or five months before management recognized my contributions and began training me as an assistant front end supervisor. After working for about a year and a half at Fry’s in Arizona, I took an offer to transfer to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I like new experiences and was curious about Texas, so I jumped at the opportunity.
The main thing I enjoy about my job is getting to work with all kinds of different people. I like to think of myself as a friendly guy who genuinely cares about the customers I help and the people I work with. I always greet every single person I can when I show up to my shift. When new workers are hired, I make it a point to give them the support that the company itself often neglects. Despite being a multi-billion-dollar corporation, Kroger doesn’t take training or new hire support seriously.
Mostly, though, work stress comes from the struggle to make ends meet on the pay Kroger offers. Despite being an assistant supervisor, I only get paid about $17 per hour and so can’t afford to live on my own in Dallas-Fort Worth on that wage. It is even worse for the workers I supervise. One cashier lost her apartment because rent increased and was no longer affordable at her wage level.
Despite the low pay, Kroger is cutthroat with its workers when it comes to taking any kind of food at the store. Two cashiers were immediately fired and banned from working at Kroger ever again over very petty theft. One worker took a Dr. Pepper to her boyfriend in produce and another took less than $5 in chicken from the deli because he didn’t have enough money that day to buy food for his lunch.
I understand any theft is wrong, but given the low pay and the difficulties in attracting and keeping enough workers, is it right to fire and ban a worker for taking less than $5 of chicken just to eat? This doesn’t sit right with me. No write up, no escalating discipline, nothing. If you are hungry and have no money, despite working surrounded by food, just stay hungry and keep making the company profits.
The way the company treats us so ruthlessly while constantly bragging about its record profits is plain insulting. Just in the first quarter of this year, Kroger registered an operating profit of $1.5 billion. That is almost double the $805 million the company made in the first quarter of 2021!
And where do these profits come from? From us! How profitable would the company be if there were no warehouse workers to pack the pallets, no receivers to take those pallets, or replenishers and stockers to break down the pallets and move the products to the shelves? How profitable would the company be if there was no way for customers to even buy the products because there is no one working on the front end?
Easy answer! There would be zero profits. Without us, nothing works.
That is what I need the corporate executives and major shareholders to understand. You wouldn’t be able to make all this money for your international trips so you can sit on the beach sipping Mai Tai’s without us. You are putting your company at risk of falling apart because of how little you respect your workers. We are going hungry, we are losing our homes, and the company couldn’t care less how badly we are struggling.
I don’t want to sit back and wait anymore. I want to get involved and do whatever I can so we can live decent lives. That is why I’m raising my voice in this newsletter and making a commitment to get active in and involved in my union. I realize that a strong union based on workers standing up for themselves and each other is the only hope we really have. I’m determined to do my part.