UFCW 555, which also covers QFC employees, agrees to terms as parent company Kroger’s merger plans stall.
Fred Meyer workers agreed to a new labor contract Monday, two months after walking off the job.
The new contract includes a “significant” wage increase for around 11,000 workers while maintaining health coverage and improving dental and retirement benefits.
“This contract is going to change thousands of lives,” Dan Clay, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 555, wrote in a statement.
In late August, 4,500 workers in 28 Portland-area Fred Meyer stores struck for six days over Labor Day weekend after contract negotiations failed to reach agreement. The workers objected to proposed cost of living adjustments as well as negotiation tactics of Fred Meyer’s parent company, Kroger. In its defense at the time, Kroger stated it had raised worker wages by one-third over the previous five years.
During the six-day strike, Kroger officials attempted to keep stores open with limited check stands and shortened hours. They and the union, the largest private sector union in Oregon, reached a tentative agreement to return work as its bargaining team continued negotiations, but when the strike ended, UFCW 555 urged customers to boycott the store
On Tuesday, representatives of both sides praised the deal.
“The new agreement comes after thoughtful and productive work by the company and union bargaining committees,” said Fred Meyer president Todd Kammeyer in a statement from the company. “This competitive wage investment and continued investments in benefits represent Fred Meyer, Fred Meyer Jewelers, and QFC’s continued commitment to the well-being of our associates.”
Clay, president of UFCW Local 555, says the deal improves the company’s process to address contract violations—a sticking point in negotiations.
“This contract is a victory for members of Local 555, who showed strength and solidarity throughout the entire fight,” he wrote. “It was won by union workers coming together and by a community standing with them.
The Labor Day strike played out as Fred Meyer’s parent company, Kroger, battled legal challenges to a proposed $25 billion merger with Kroger’s biggest rival, Albertsons. In a federal courtroom in Portland, Kroger and Albertsons fought a challenge by regulators with the Federal Trade Commission to block the deal. That case went to the judge in September and remains undecided.
Two state antitrust lawsuits are also blocking the deal, one in Washington and one in Colorado. Judges in both those cases are currently deliberating, as well.
Legal experts say the companies must win all three cases in order for the merger to succeed, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The three-year deal affects 11,000 workers. The union previously struck in Portland in 2021, a one-day strike.
UFCW claims 1.3 million members worldwide. Local 555 was the only chapter to support the planned Kroger-Albertsons merger, an endorsement it rescinded when contract negotiations broke down.
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