The Kroger Co. has decided to close down Long Beach’s Food 4 Less and Ralph’s on April 17th, after the City of Long Beach announced it’s Hero Pay Mandate.
This mandate requires grocery stores in Long Beach to pay their employees an extra $4 an hour.
The Food 4 Less store that is being closed is on 2185 E. South St. and the Ralphs store that is closing is at 3380 N. Los Coyotes Diagonal.
Cities like Long Beach, Santa Monica and Seattle are exploring a new approach for how cities and counties can address the needs of frontline essential workers.
Although the Kroger Co. has provided assistance to their employees in the past, the decision to close down two of their local grocery stores was unexpected.
According to an LBCC Economics Professor, “The companies’ goals are to maximize their profits and businesses. Food 4 Less and Walmart do this by keeping their labor costs low.”
The end result of the Hero Pay Mandate has pushed Kroger Co. to close down these stores.
According to the Brookings Institution report, Kroger ended it’s $2 per hour “hero pay” in mid-May.
The report also states, “Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons. Together, the three companies earned an additional $6.8 billion in profit in the first three quarters of 2020 compared to 2019—an average increase of 98%. Meanwhile, the extra hazard pay these companies provided their workers averaged just $0.76 per hour through the end of 2020—well below the average hazard pay of $1.19 per hour across the 13 companies in our analysis…”
“It just seems unfair for Kroger to have suspended the hero pay so long ago when in the meantime they’ve doubled their profits,” said LBCC student and regular Food 4 Less customer, Emileth Abadiano.
Hero pay is one way that employers can acknowledge their workers’ sacrifices and honor their essential value as well as having them compensated for it.
Emileth continued, “I guess it just sucks that it’s the front line workers and the people in our community who end up suffering in this battle between Kroger and the city.”