More Perfect Union Profile picture
Apr 24, 2021 7 tweets 4 min read Read on X
1. Today, @Kroger is closing two stores in Seattle to retaliate against a local $4/hr hero pay law. More than 100 workers will be fired or dislocated.

Kroger made $2.8B in profit in 2020. CEO Rodney McMullen got a pay raise to $21M.

Some heart-breaking details are emerging.
2. At one of the stores, neighbors and customers raised $205.88 for each of the 51 impacted workers as a gesture of thanks.

Employees, "some with tears in their eyes," received a round of applause and kind words at a community farewell event.

seattletimes.com/business/local…
3. One of the shuttered locations has been an active grocery store for 44 years. Neighbors are lamenting the loss of convenience & a community hub.

No other grocery chain except Kroger, America’s largest, has closed locations to protest hazard pay laws.

capitolhillseattle.com/2021/04/90-in-…
4. Seattle isn’t the only place where Kroger is punishing its own workers to fight hazard pay.

Kroger closed additional stores in Long Beach, CA, last week over a city hero pay ordinance.

More closures are planned in Los Angeles next month.

5. Amid record profits, Kroger claims it is closing stores because they’re underperforming.

But local employees consistently say it’s not true.

Via @seattletimes:
We spoke to Kroger workers in Seattle earlier this year.

They wanted to be safe on the job and to be paid a fair wage for their work.

One employee told us that the extra $4/hour would be “a buffer between me and homelessness.”

7. Kroger is planning to shutter 3 additional stores in Los Angeles on May 15.

These are profitable stores where 250 people work. They will all be fired or have their jobs dislocated.

Workers are organizing with their union, @UFCW770, to fight back.

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More from @MorePerfectUS

Apr 17
Two people were tased at Marjorie Taylor Greene’s town hall in Georgia, where furious constituents demanded answers about insider trading, DOGE, and more.

The Congresswoman faces multiple allegations of profiting from market manipulation. What’s really going on? 🧵
MTG bought between $10K-$150K worth of stock the same day that Trump announced his 90-day pause on tariffs.

The day before, she purchased between $11K-165K in stocks and sold between $50K-100K in Treasury bills.
The stocks? Primarily companies that were most affected by the tariff announcement.

usatoday.com/story/news/pol…
Read 9 tweets
Mar 28
*Signs an illegal executive order. This is called breaking a union contract.

It’s an attack on workers everywhere. Thread. Headline: Trump signs executive order ending collective bargaining with federal unions at agencies involved with national security
Last night Trump signed an executive order instructing 18 agencies to illegally terminate their collective bargaining agreements with 700,000 union workers.
Trump is falsely claiming that is move is about national security, but agencies like the Department of Health and Human services are included.
thehill.com/homenews/admin…
Read 4 tweets
Feb 3
In the first two weeks of the Elon Musk presidency, the world’s richest man has attacked the federal government relentlessly.

Here’s what the billionaire has done in just 14 days. Thread 🧵
Musk and his cronies have forced their way into the Treasury Department, and his young, inexperienced loyalists are attempting to get into the system that manages payments for the entire government.
crisesnotes.com/elon-musk-want…
The extent of Musk’s infiltration into the Treasury is not yet clear, but that’s part of the problem. Once fairly transparent, the activity systems that ought to be apolitical are suddenly unclear thanks to the billionaire’s underhanded advances.
Read 9 tweets
Jan 8
Unprecedented wildfires are ripping through the Los Angeles area, and the state’s wildfire fighting force often includes incarcerated workers making as little as under $6 a day.

🧵
2) California has dozens of “fire camps” throughout the state for incarcerated people to fight wildfires.

They work in “hand crews” to dig trenches, clear vegetation, and perform other “dirty work” to help make putting out fires possible. smithsonianmag.com/history/the-hi…
3) Despite the fact that these workers can make up nearly a third of the force battling the state’s wildfires, they’re paid between $5.80 and $10.24 per *day*.

The number of inmates willing to do this work has plummeted from a peak of more than 4,000 in 2005, to less than 1,800 today, even as fires have gotten deadlier.
latimes.com/california/sto…
Read 11 tweets
Jan 3
President Biden has officially blocked the sale of U.S. Steel to Japanese giant Nippon Steel for $14.9 billion.

"Without domestic steel production and domestic steel workers, our nation is less strong and less secure," Biden said.
Despite extensive lobbying by Nippon, United Steelworkers opposed the deal over concerns including that Nippon would seek to renegotiate their existing contract, which expires in September 2026, and could pursue layoffs and plant closures.
washingtonpost.com/business/2024/…
Biden first announced his opposition to the deal last March. In September, his admin told Nippon in a letter that that the sale would damage American steel production and pose a national security risk. reuters.com/markets/deals/…
Read 6 tweets
Dec 13, 2024
The FTC is suing the biggest alcohol distributor in the country, and it matters a whole lot more than you think.

It could even change the price of your groceries.

Here’s why you should know about the Robinson-Patman Act. Thread.
The Robinson-Patman Act requires suppliers to offer the same prices and terms to all buyers. Passed in 1936 to protect small businesses, the law meant that big chains and corporations couldn’t get discounts that weren’t available to mom and pop shops.
ilsr.org/articles/the-c…
But in the 1980s, the FTC simply stopped enforcing it.

Since 1982, the market share of independent retailers has fallen from 53 percent to 22 percent, according to the @ilsr.

ilsr.org/articles/stacy…
Read 6 tweets

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