Changes in the Grocery Industry

Last week, the employees of King Soopers stores went out on strike, and really got me thinking how things have changed since I was a part-time grocery clerk working at King’s while going through High School and College in the mid 1970’s until the early 1980’s.

King Soopers was founded by the late Lloyd King, who opened up his first store in 1947, in Arvada, CO. The company expanded to nine stores by 1957 and was acquired by Dillon Companies, in Hutchinson, Kansas. In 1983, King Soopers merged with Kroger.

I worked at the 5th store that Lloyd King opened, in the (then new) Denver Mayfair Shopping Center. The store was only about 1/4th the size of their current store at the same location. In those days, working as a part-time grocery clerk was a decent job. This store had 12 full-service check-out stands and 2 express stations (for 12 items or less). During the busiest times of the day, all 14 check-out stands were in use, along with each checker there was also a courtesy clerk, to do the bagging. Although this was before scanners, the checkers and courtesy clerks still got customers through quickly. The store had about 35 checkers and 40 courtesy clerks on the schedule. A courtesy clerk was also assigned to the bottle return area, where people brought back their glass pop bottles for a 3-cent refund on each bottle returned. Providing good customer service was very important. At night, about 15 floor stockers came in, reloading the shelves. They also had to use an ink marker or label gun to place prices on each item, as there were no scanner codes on items then.

I worked as a Bakery Clerk. Since evening customers were as important as day customers, we had to make sure that the bakery cases were full of pastries until at least 9 PM. The stores closed at 11 PM. All items were in enclosed cases, in which the clerk would package up the customer’s items. Salaries were decent in those days. The Federal Minimum wage was $3.25, and I was making almost three times that amount. There were also pay premiums including 25 cents per hour extra for work after 6 PM, 1.5 times salary when working on Sundays, and triple pay when working on holidays! Employees received wages for after so many hours worked (i.e. each 2,500 hours). This applied to both part time and full-time employees. We also received free medical insurance and a pharmaceutical maximum charge of $1.00 per prescription! The stores were closed on New Years Day and Thanksgiving Day, to allow employees to spend the holidays with their families and friends.

All clerks had to join the “Retail Clerks Union” (old name for UCFW) within 30 days of employment. I remember the grocery strike in 1973, not long after I started working at Kings. Then, Kings, Safeway, and Albertsons all worked off the same contract. Contract renewals had to be approved by all three grocery chain employees, or all three would strike at the same time. Also, the strike was honored by the Teamsters union, where they would not deliver stock to the stores. Any other deliveries made to the stores by contractors were all done in non-refrigerated trucks. Besides fighting for good wages and benefits, the union was also needed to help protect employee interests. When people were promoted into Management, they lacked the needing training. For instance, at one point I was almost fired, because I refused to ditch school to come into work early!

Sadly now, customer service and employee benefits have diminished, while food prices have been going up much quicker than salaries. Companies are now making an ever-larger profit. Just think of the $24.6 Billion that Kroger would have paid to buy out Albertsons/Safeway. Here are some bullet items, giving examples:

- The number of checkers and courtesy clerks have been greatly reduced. Adding the self-service checkout stands is a big reason for this. Customers liked having the chance to use scanners, which some treated like a high-tech toy. Now, customers end up doing the work themselves (checkout and bagging). For each row of 6 scanners, has taken away 5 checker jobs and 6 Courtesy Clerk jobs. Customers do not see discounts for doing this work themselves. Very few full-service checkout stands are open. This was a brilliant psychology scheme by management on how to cut back staff.

- Most of the departments (i.e., Deli, Meat, Bakery, etc.) are now closed up by 8 PM. Evening customers are no longer catered to. For instance, Pastry shelves are commonly cleared out by early afternoon. If any items are left, they look like they have been run over by a truck. Selecting and bagging pastries is now mostly self-service. The problem with this is that you don’t know who or how many people handled the pastries before you, especially with flu and covid still on the loose.

- Salaries are now not much above minimum wage. The evening, Sunday, and Holiday pay premiums no longer exist, plus employees now have to pay for their medical coverage. King Soopers is proposing wage increases, but only for full timers, although costs are going up for everyone. Salaries are lower for stores in some of the Denver suburbs than in the Denver stores. Wages should be the same for the entire metropolitan area. The clerks are just trying to keep up with inflation, so they don’t have to work 2 jobs to survive. They would also like to see safer working conditions and not having to do the work of 2 or more people.

Some customers think that higher wages will create higher grocery prices. The truth is that grocery prices will continue to go up no matter what happens with a new contract. Two of the bigger things that cause grocery prices to rise are Shoplifting and lost/stolen grocery shopping carts. Each full-size cart costs over $1,000 to replace. Also think of salary/benefit increases that the corporate executives receive that customers don’t know about.

I hope that you found this article interesting and informative.