The strike against King Soopers by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 drags on, and it requires miraculous powers of revision to see it as some heroic stand for fundamental American rights rather than a slick political maneuver.
Ostensibly, the strike is about breakdowns in negotiations over a new contract agreement. To hear the union tell it, conditions in King Soopers stores in Denver call to mind Dickensian work-houses and debtor's prisons, and the company’s approach to the negotiations was to offer nothing beyond allowing workers an extra ounce of stale bread and limiting floggings to 12 lashes per shift.
The reality, needless to say, is considerably different. Despite the inflationary and COVID-related pressures the company is facing, King Soopers nevertheless went to the bargaining table in good faith, willing to work out a fair deal that both sides could live with. In their final offer, King Soopers proposed raising its minimum STARTING wage to $16 an hour — an inflationary rate that is almost $4 an hour more than the state’s minimum wage — and offering its unionized employees pay increases of up to an additional $4.50 per hour.
They didn’t stop there. The company also proposed strengthening their sick leave policy — including allowing workers to begin accumulating and using sick leave starting on the day they are hired, doubling the amount that can be accrued in a year and more than doubling the accrual rate. This is on top of the significant...
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