From The Shop Floor: Kroger Workers Against Workplace Terrorism

Since the Kroger warehouse in Michigan organized earlier this year (1), and the one in Atlanta soon after (2), workers who operate Kroger’s delivery service have been organizing and affiliating with the Teamsters. Based on correspondence from workers, handbilling has begun at other facilities including those in Louisville and Indianapolis, and so has Kroger’s pressure to quell this organizing wave. 

One correspondent in an interview with a now former employee received a first hand account of Kroger’s tactics; 

Q. What is your facility called? What can you tell us about the facility? 

A. FC01 Monroe. Pretty large. Very nice. They used it in a lot of the training modules. It’s a (several) story facility, giant warehouse with Acado’s machines and plan for expansion. They put up gates around the facility with barbed wire and security cameras. 

Q. How long did you work at Kroger? What changes did you see occur in your time at the facility? 

A. 2 ½ years. When I started there it was decent pay at $18/hr and a full hour break with two 15 minute breaks. Around the year mark they started taking breaks, down to a 10 minute and 30 minute break. They also cut down our delivery radius as more facilities open. They started bringing sub contractors and drivers with less training. As they opened more facilities, we saw our drive time decrease. 

Q. What kind of anti-union tactics were you seeing? 

A. From what I heard from other people, there was a small union organizing movement early on and that’s when the fence went up. There’s nowhere to pass out materials and you’re basically in the parking lot if you’re inside the fence. We were told not to talk about our pay quite a bit. There was a lot of misinformation regarding labor laws. People were scared. During orientation they gave the whole “we’re a family” speech. My experience was honestly pretty awful. 

Q. How did you like the job? What about your coworkers, how did they seem to feel about the job? Is there anything from your experience that needed to change to improve conditions?

A. Restoring and increasing break time. The way they scheduled overtime, I drove 13 hours a day on top of an hour to and from work. Every day other drives were saying “f*ck this place.” The shifts changed too, I worked a shift that was 4 10’s that I got grandfathered into I really liked, but if anyone from that shift needed to change a day on their schedule, they were immediately rescheduled to 5 day shifts. It made us ask “what are you getting out of this?” The perpetual taking away of perks that we started the job with was apparent. We watched as subcontractors were taking our jobs. Morale was low. 

Hiring subcontractors, taking away rest time, adding additional surveillance infrastructure, all of these and more demonstrate the depravity of Kroger’s tactics to suppress worker organizing. Only further highlighted by more first hand accounts from other facilities. 

According to correspondents, over the last several months, Kroger facilities have increased the number of breaks from one 10 minute break to two 15 minute breaks (both in addition to a 30 minute lunch break.) They have given $2 raises in response to the organizing wave. With the incentives, they’ve also brought in internal specialists to coach Human Resources teams and spread anti-union propaganda through captive audience meetings and flyers. Some of these specialists are even former members of the National Labor Relations Board, hired by Kroger. The result has been a litany of alleged labor violations by workers who have been discussing union organizing with coworkers, distributing union material, and working to correct the record on the anti-labor slander the bosses have been spreading in an effort to slow down the organizing wave. Even the concessions the bosses have offered to placate the workers, has resulted in earlier departure times for drivers and a noticeable increase in load volume per route, and an increase in the rate of exploitation towards workers and further discouragement. 

What’s important to note is that over the course of union campaigns, including the examples given in this article, the majority of the workers do not turn out to be “anti-union.” In fact, the majority of workers are usually sympathetic. But these tactics are to develop a sense of fear within workers. Scared to speak up. Scared to meet. Scared to talk to their coworkers. The capitalists know this, as they have initiative in any unorganized workplace and at no point have to convince workers that a union is bad for them, despite what much of their propaganda will say, the workers often recognize the absurdity in the company materials. Instead, the capitalist needs only to sow doubt. Harness fear.

There is only one thing that can stave off the tyranny the capitalists conduct against the worker and that is to organize. Every concession is met with a slap to the face shortly after. The capitalist will deploy legal and illegal methods where they feel they can most effectively sow doubt amongst workers and stop them from organizing. These tactics must be exposed at every opportunity and the militants leading the charge must stand firm, and be willing to adapt to the ebb and flow of their respective campaign. Tight organization, careful analysis, and optimal training will be the key. 

Sources: 

[1] https://teamster.org/2024/05/in-landslide-victory-kroger-workers-join-teamsters-local-337/ 

[2] https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/kroger-ecommerce-facility-drivers-teamsters-uni onize/725722/