Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the US which makes hundred of millions of dollars in profits, is shutting down grocery stores and laying off scores of employees in response to local hazard pay rules for essential workers even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage.
Maria Hernandez has worked at Ralphs grocery stores for 25 years before she recently found out her store would be shutting down. She’s worked through the pandemic and caught the coronavirus in May 2020. She still experiences lingering, long-term effects from it, and has dealt with panic attacks and anxiety from the stress and pressures placed on essential workers.
“Why are they punishing us?” said Hernandez. “If it weren’t for us they couldn’t run the stores. As a person we have value. As workers we have value. They don’t seem to care about you as a human being. They don’t care.”
In response to a local ordinance passed by the Los Angeles city council on 3 March to grant frontline workers at large employers a $5-an-hour hazard pay increase for 120 days, Kroger announced plans to shut down three grocery stores in the city, eliminating more than 250 jobs.
Kroger claimed the decision to shut down a Food4Less location and two Ralphs stores was due to underperformance at the locations.
Tina Jones, a courtesy clerk at one of the Ralphs grocery stores set for closure, argued the decision was retaliation toward workers and the pay ordinance.
“If this store was underachieving, it was underachieving prior to the pandemic. It should have been closed then. Why are they waiting until now to close it? It’s retaliation,” said Jones.
“Because none of these executives at Kroger, did they give us their yearly bonus so we could get $5 an hour? No, they’re sitting in their nice houses in the hills or wherever they live, and telling us we don’t deserve an extra $5 an hour.”
Jones also lives and grew up near where she works at Ralphs. She’s concerned about the impact closing the grocery store will have on the community, especially customers in need, such as a couple regular customers who are blind that she helps grocery shop.
She makes $15.30 an hour, 30 cents more than the current hourly minimum wage in Los Angeles, and explained she and her co-workers have struggled working through the pandemic, from dealing with significant influxes of customers in stores, maskless customers, lack of personal protective equipment and coronavirus outbreaks.
“I think each one of us has earned that $5 an hour,” added Jones. “For Kroger to say that we’re all a family, well, they’re putting their family out on the street. …
On the left is Smiley (dad, 49 years old) and on the right is Chippie (mum, 50 years old), who are young parents as far as Galapagos Turtles go. They successfully bred for the first times in 2017, but the baby hatched prematurely and wasn’t able to make it past four months.
This is Smiley compared to baby Pinta before she passed. : (
I can’t find the new babies’ names although, I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t been given them yet. Pinta was chosen by a vote, so they might be named in the same way.
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