I try to be a responsible, albeit small-time investor and long ago dropped my investments in massive corporations that insist upon working overtime to make the world worse.
Today, I added a hometown (Cincinnati) mega-firm to the ‘evil’ list.
I sold my shares in Kroger, a company that ranks as #1 in the grocery business and is the 4th-largest retailer in the world. I encourage others to do the same. KR is their stock symbol. They obviously don’t need our money.
As you can read below, hundreds of Kroger employees are now out of work because the company won’t pay the extra $4/hour hazard pay that has been mandated in some areas of California. Few of us would argue that grocery workers are on the pandemic front-lines, daily risking illness and possibly death for themselves and their families.
Yet a corporation that used $1.6 Billion of its record revenue from booming sales during the ongoing pandemic to buy back their stock—how generous of them— can’t seem to justify paying the workers who helped make it possible.
Kroger’s response: close stores and put the employees on the unemployment line wherever these ‘hazard pay’ mandates are in force.
Note that this is not a permanent pay raise for their hourly workers, even though it probably should be, as it only applies for the next four months.
From CNN:
"Since the pandemic began, Kroger has made billions in profits because of the sacrifices of grocery workers who have been putting their own health and safety on the line every day," UFCW International president Marc Perrone said in a statement.
"Rather than provide the hazard pay these grocery workers have earned and deserve, Kroger decided to threaten these workers and the community’s access to food in the middle of a public health crisis."
Profit during the pandemic: The two stores slated for closure experienced sales increases of up to 31% since the start of the pandemic, according to Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
Herrera said Kroger has recently seen a 90% profit increase and spent $1.4 billion in stock buybacks. CNN has reached out to Kroger for comment on its earnings.
Robert Gonzalez, a frozen food clerk at the Food 4 Less, said he was devastated to learn his store will be closing after working for Kroger for 26 years.
More possible closures: Earlier this week, the cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Oakland passed similar hazard pay ordinances. Grocery store employees in Seattle who work for a company with more than 500 employees also saw a $4 an hour hazard pay increase starting Wednesday. Kroger told CNN it was also considering additional closures in several US cities.