Heroes? Not If They Get Paid!
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In the American context, “heroes” means that you take our meaningless platitudes and sacrifice whatever you have to without receiving any actual compensation. So veterans are “heroes” but let’s slash the VA budget. After all, taxes amirite? It’s even more egregious with grocery store and other front line workers in the pandemic, who most certainly did not sign up for this. And when a city acts to actually back up the work these people are doing in making sure we are fed during a pandemic? Well, we can’t have that now can we.
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.
The Ralphs at 3380 N. Los Coyotes Diagonal and the Food 4 Less at 2185 E. South St. are slated to close on April 17, the company said Monday.
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.”
This is honestly no more grotesque than other forms of unionbusting. But in the context of the times, hopefully it gains attention because it is absolutely 100% morally reprehensible. Moreover, the company isn’t even hiding it.