Long Beach Ralphs, Food 4 Less stores to close over $4 ‘hero pay’ boost for grocery workers

Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs and Food 4 Less, will soon shut down two of its stores in Long Beach in response to the city imposing a “hero pay” increase of $4 per hour for some grocery store workers.

In announcing the closure, Kroger cited a recently passed Long Beach City Council ordinance that mandated the hazard pay bump for at least 120 days amid the increased health risk to workers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The new law affects grocery stores with at least 300 employees nationwide or more than 15 employees per market in the city.

“As a result of the City of Long Beach’s decision to pass an ordinance mandating Extra Pay for grocery workers, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close long-struggling store locations in Long Beach,” a company spokesperson said news release. “This misguided action by the Long Beach City Council oversteps the traditional bargaining process and applies to some, but not all, grocery workers in the city.”

Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs, already bumped pay by $2 as COVID hazard pay.

This city mandate made it too expensive to employ people and forced the stores’ closures.

These jobs were union jobs, so again the dues paying members of the union get fucked by the Democrat politicians that union management supported.

Artificially raising prices of labor above market rates doesn’t help people in the long run.

I can’t wait until $15 per hour kicks in an all of our grocery stores look like they belong in Caracas because Kroger has to cut half the staff and they can’t restock fast enough to mop the floors, ring up customers, and restock the shelves at the same time.