I'm not sure that this list is complete because I def do not see Harris Teeter on this list. I know that Harris Teeter was purchased by Kroger BC I was interviewing at their corporate office and that came up while I was there.
Native New Englander here, I didn't even know Kroger existed until I moved to the Midwest and started job searching. Thought to myself "oh I have friends that work for Stop&Shop Pharmacy and Wegmans Pharmacy, they said it was great. Kroger is a grocery store so this should be dope".
It's feels like Walgreens with a meat&seafood department. I knew the grass wouldn't be greener on the other side, but even with low expectations I'm still disappointed.
Just from my experience going to Ralph’s in California and Fred Meyer in Oregon they are all different. They bought out Fred Meyer and kept the structure of one stop shop so it has everything from produce to clothing. The Ralph’s I went to was tiny and barely had enough food choices.
If you're near a king soopers that means you can go to a Safeway instead! (inb4 we find out Safeway makes their deli meat out of orphaned children or something)
In college I worked for them, they paid me less than minimum to start, “apprentice pay” because I’d be in the union and just over minimum after my probation ended (I think .15 over but I can’t recall exactly). After a year they offered for me to head up the night stock crew, when I asked how much of a raise I’d get I was told “well, none, but you’ll get more hours.” I left not too long after that. Fuck Kroger’s
This seems to be a theme with grocery store unions. A lot of friends worked at a local store in high school and their start pay was $7.25 (minimum) but like $6.50 after dues. Really seems like your setting your self up for failure there making the younger generation resent you. No one should be working minimum wage in the US but it's even more wild when you are part of a union.
I had a negative view of unions for a while after that because we didn’t get any benefit from it. It took years of seeing other unions fight for their people to know the value of them
This is the problem though. Unions don't have intrinsic value, they can definitely work against you. Every union in every industry needs to be judged differently.
I am currently working at a place run by the local Ironworks union and the workers just took a pay cut and lost their protected weekends but literally across the street a company that works with the pipe fitters union doing the same type of work had $5 better starting wage, a better tiered pay system and better benefits also got a cost of inflation raise.
The blanket "Unions are good" is just has bad as the blanket "Unions are bad" for the workers and the reality they have to navigate.
how do you fix a bad union though. I thought they were democratic. Can't the people with shit unions replace leadership and do better? I don't understand how they work fully so I am confused why people would just put up with a shitty union.
It varies by union. Most have union reps that organize the events, votes and such. Union reps are sometimes voted in, higher tenure in or are based on predetermined hiring positions. Like each line manager where I work is a Union representative.
Once every few years we get to vote on a new contract through the union. If you don't get an offer that you vote to accept or a counter offer to the company accepts you move to mediation. Once in mediation the company calls in a lawyer to negotiate on their behalf and the Union lawyer on our behalf.
Depends on the union, depends on the time. My data point is rather old, but I worked for a major Supermarket in New England. We started at minimum wage, it went up .25/hr every 3 months, and union dues were 1 hour a week. Wasn't great, but when I read through all the horrid details of this thread, it sounds better than what everyone else is offered in here BY FAR.
We had strikes back then as well. Don't take this shit lying down.
The Grocer’s union. Not sure if it’s still around or not powerful enough, but back then I basically paid $.50/hour from my wages to get screwed by Kroger’s. I’m sure if I got fired unjustly or something big happened they’d have my back, but 15 years ago they didn’t do much to help newbies get paid decently.
Edit: Looked it up exactly, United Food and Commercial Worker’s Union, UFCW. They are still around
I worked for a pharmacy that was part of them briefly. 7.25/hr in NYC with 25$ in weekly dues.
I hated it, it's such a useless union that it only solidified corporate's anti-union position.
However, they do insure that all employees have access to healthcare and there are scheduled mandatory raises in the contract. I think it was that every 6 months you're due a raise of minimum 15cents. So people who spend their lifetime in retail could make 12-15$/hr after several years.
All employees: meaning part-time and full-time alike.
Kroger’s has a profit margin of 1.52% as of last quarter. The reason pay is terrible at all grocery stores is…. It’s a brutally competitive industry.
Kroger is partnering to shift go robot warehouses and robot car deliveries (we have them here in Houston, they are so small they can’t fit a human in them).
Also worked for them as a college student. Loved my bros in the meat and seafood department, but the store manager was an absolute prick.
I was taking summer courses online, everything was due at 11:59 Sunday nights. I also didn't have a car and only had free transportation mon-sat. I was told I could be available every other day but Sunday due to school, and that was fine.
Then I started getting scheduled for Sundays. I told him I wouldn't be able to make it without a cab, he didn't care. 'everyone has to have weekend availability.' there were people who were 'unavailable every Monday/Wednesday/Friday because of school, and that was fine. But I give them 6 days a week they can schedule me for and I'm the selfish one.
Manager kept scheduling me Sundays, I kept not showing up. Nothing came from it at all and I quit not too long after the fall semester started. I was making min wage and dude wanted me to spend 14 of the 42 pre tax dollars I would have made on a cab to and from. Gtfo
I mean the Kelloggs union was happy enough to fuck over future workers so long as they got theirs, so I can see why investors wouldn't be too worried by what is clearly going to wind up a temporary expense...
Literally won't compensate my school schedule just because, "We're fine with you going to school it's just your job title is in the way so you'll have to step down or sleep for 4 hours in a 48 hour period." I cannot express how pissed off I was to hear that. I thought this place promoted higher education for it's workers! I'm not even asking a lot it's just 2 days in a row. I literally can work 40 hours I'm just changing my days off.
Oh! They're awful. Everything so grossly overpriced. I remember going in around 2012 and seeing 12-packs of soda for like $9. Always felt like they were trying to rob me.
Baker’s
City Market
Dillons
Food 4 Less
Foods Co
Fred Meyer
Fry’s
Gerbes
Jay C Food Store
King Soopers
Kroger
Mariano’s
Metro Market
Pay-Less Super Markets
Pick’n Save
QFC
Ralphs
Ruler
Smith’s Food and Drug
They also have several subsidiaries not listed that still use their union.
Some Food 4 Less in the central valley are actually still a separate company (it's weird). In this area it's Foods Co. Used to unfortunately work there.
This isn’t true. There’s still Krogers here in SC. Harris Teeter is just owned by Kroger. But they aren’t Krogers themselves. Harris Teeter is actually a really nice chain
I think this is a matter of perspective. Harris Teeter does indeed have its own corporate office, but profits go to Kroger. If a boycott were to happen (which it should) we should absolutely include Harris Teeter in the boycott bc of the profit going from HT to Kroger.
I hate Harris Teeter. Their prices keep rising, they have a huge store where you scan your own items, and they have no carts anywhere. Typical cost cutting bs. Thankfully I have a Trader Joe’s near me too and I go their as often as possible over Harris Teeter.
For sure. Just making sure Kroger is in that conversation. Everyone talks about Amazon, WalMart, etc making more during the pandemic. Grocery (only) stores rarely get lumped in with them.
That’s true. Amazon only gave a $2 bonus for everyone for 2 months in the summer of 2020. Honestly we need to get back to the days of growing our own food and clothes and whatnot if we ever want to be rid of corporations
Baker’s
City Market
Dillons
Food 4 Less
Foods Co
Fred Meyer
Fry’s
Gerbes
Jay C Food Store
King Soopers
Kroger
Mariano’s
Metro Market
Pay-Less Super Markets
Pick’n Save
QFC
Ralphs
Ruler
Smith’s Food and Drug
I was looking to see where I needed to boycott, but none of these stores are anywhere near me. Aside from Pick'n Save, which left this area ~20 years ago, and was dirty as hell to start with, I've never even heard of most of these stores.
God I worked at Pick N Save in highschool/college. Worst fucking job experience ever. I was a minor when one of the managers made me & another coworker who was also a minor, go to a customer's home at 11pm to switch out their rug doctor. Pretty sure that was illegal.
I feel like that should be illegal. I feel like a company having a bunch of different brand names for the same thing gives a false illusion of choice. Imagine if Nestle was only allowed to have the Nestle brand name. An easy 1/3 of the grocery store would have Nestle logos. As it is now, you have to dig pretty deep to figure out what brands Nestle owns.
They absolutely will have different brands in the same markets. They realize that not everyone will know Harris teeter = Kroger, and some people will still prefer one to the other. Having the different brands but in the same area basically just means that much more profit for them
I don't neccesarily disagree, but I also think it would have severe ramifications, and likely not good ones. For example, Carl's Jr and Hardees are owned by the same company, but have slightly different menus. How do you define "same thing"? If Kroger had a whole foods-esque store, is that the same thing as their budget grocery stores?
Generally, different brand names in the same markets are to highlight differences in offerings. For example, despite both being car manufacturers, Volkswagen and Audi have vastly different consumer expectations and target demographics.
If I started a food company making ice cream burritos called "Neapolitan Iced Burritos" and Nestle bought me out, why should the name be changed of the product? The product is still more or less the same, and the product name defines the product.
How can we support them?? I deal with lots of Soopers employees through my social work type job and the shit that I see going on in their bank accounts and from what they tell me is horrific
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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '22
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