BATON ROUGE, La. -- An Ohio-based grocery store chain closed six of its 11 Louisiana stores Tuesday and a union representing 800 workers who walked off the job across the state filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.
About 800 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 210 struck Kroger stores in Louisiana at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday protesting cuts in wages and benefits contained in what the company said was its final contract offer.
'They told the union, 'Here is our final offer. If you reject, we will close the Baton Rouge stores before the first of the year. If you reject and strike, and if pickets show up, we will close the Baton Rouge stores at that time,'' said union president Aurbin P. Dickey.
Company officials at the Houston-based grocery chain said the Baton Rouge area stores had been losing money for some time and the strike made it no longer possible to operate them.
'Over the past several months Kroger has indicated to bargaining representatives ... that Kroger food stores in the Baton Rouge area are unprofitable and significant modifications of the labor agreement were needed to bring the stores more in line with performance expectations,' said Carmen Lovell, a Kroger marketing spokeswoman.
'However, the union's failure to agree with us on a new contract indicates to us that we could only expect to sustain further losses by continuing to operate in the Baton Rouge area.'
She said the six stores were being closed permanently, but that Kroger intended to continue operating stores in Alexandria, Pineville, Lake Charles, Lafayette and Sulphur.
Trucks rolled up to the Baton Rouge stores shortly after 'closed' signs were posted in windows and non-union workers began loading perishable food items for transfer to other stores.
'It is our current intention to operate the food stores during the strike action and keep them operating if and when a settlement is reached,' Mrs. Lovell said.
Dickey said about 800 Kroger employees -- including checkout clerks and stockers -- were involved in the strike, 430 of them employed in the Baton Rouge area stores.
A contract between the union and Kroger expired on Oct. 9, but both sides continued the existing agreement while negotiations on a new pact continued.
