During the first two weeks of school, the Roosevelt intercom rang out with a message about our local Fred Meyer being closed for lunch. Many students go to Fred Meyer often for lunch and as the student body may have found out, Fred Meyer wasn’t actually closed, its union employees were on strike.
From Wednesday August 28th at 6am to Tuesday September 3rd at 8am the workers of Fred Meyer, a part of the UFCW local 555 union striked, each day that week, the parking lots of Fred Meyer stores across Oregon were filled with picket lines. When talking to the union’s spokesperson, Miles Eshaia he stated that the strike was, “to protest unfair labor practices committed against them by the company.” Unlike the PAT strike in November of 2023 that many students may be familiar with, an unfair labor practice strike, by law, must have a beginning and an end, even if an agreement isn’t reached. On Wednesday September 4th, Fred Meyer employees went back to work, with no agreement reached.
The union representatives met again on September 11th and 12th, with no agreement being reached and UFCW local 555 reported on their website: “The employer did not make a proposal that put more money on the table, whether that be in the form of a wage increase, healthcare improvement or retirement improvement.” The strike on Fred Meyer coincides with Fred Meyer’s parent company, Kroger’s attempt to merge with grocery company Albertsons, creating a monopoly that would become one of the biggest grocery chains. The union is now calling for a boycott, when talking to Eshaia he explained, “Real simple, don’t shop at Fred Meyer, just shop somewhere else.”
The aftermath of the strike and negotiations are still ongoing, as the union is meeting again in October for more negotiations.
