Workers at King Soopers stores in Pueblo joined other Front Range locations in a strike Friday morning. The stores in the Steel City join more than 10,000 unionized workers across 77 stores in multiple counties, mostly around the Denver metro, that hit the picket lines Thursday.
King Soopers has two grocery stores in Pueblo. Reyna Carpenter is a seafood manager at one of them. In a press conference Thursday, she said she also serves on the union negotiating committee.
"I guess some of us had hoped that in the last week maybe the employer would come see the light and change their illegal behaviors, particularly after the overwhelming vote to strike," she said. "I am confident these strikes will get the company's attention… The only way to have a voice is to stand up to them, and our workers are doing that."
Union workers are concerned about staffing shortages, outsourcing union jobs, price gouging and other issues. They also allege the supermarket chain has surveilled workers’ conversations with union representatives and have skewed negotiations with inaccurate information about the company’s financial state.
While the workers are not striking over wages specifically, King Soopers has publicly offered to boost clerks’ hourly wage by $4.50 over four years — with some associates earning over $27 an hour by 2028. Currently, the average hourly wage for a full-time associate at King Soopers is $22.68.
King Soopers has not responded to a request for comment about the union’s claims that it has hired hundreds of temporary workers to compensate for the strike. It also has not addressed the union’s claims that temps are being paid more than normal staff would be.
"My coworkers and I, workers from all over Colorado, have been working ourselves to the bone, doing the jobs of two or three people," Carpenter said. "We stand in solidarity to demand that King Soopers stop their unfair labor practices and bargain with us in good faith."
Unionized workers in Colorado Springs also voted to approve a strike last week, but have not yet taken to picket lines. In a statement from United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7, the union said there are some contracts that don't expire until later this month. At that time, Colorado Springs stores could join the strike, but there is no timeline for that yet.
This is the second strike King Soopers employees have launched since 2022, when they walked off the job for 10 days over stalled negotiations. The union has said the current strike is planned to last up to two weeks, or until a new contract is solidified.
Molly Cruse contributed to this report.
