Grocery trade groups sue Seattle over mandatory pay raise

Two trade groups representing grocery stores in the Pacific Northwest sued the city of Seattle on Wednesday for requiring stores to increase workers’ hazard pay by $4 an hour amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the city ordinance, all large grocery stores with locations bigger than 10,000 square feet and more than 500 employees worldwide must provide the pay increase to all workers through the end of the city’s civil emergency.

“Unfortunately, the council’s unprecedented ordinance, its unilateral action, and unwillingness to work with the grocery industry has left us with no other option than to file a lawsuit against the city,” Tammie Hetrick, president and CEO of the Washington Food Industry Association, said in a statement, according to The Seattle Times.

In the lawsuit, the group accuses the city of attempting to override federal laws on collective bargaining between unions and management. It further alleges the city singles out large grocers “without providing any reasonable justification for the exclusion of other employers or frontline retail workers.”

The lawsuit also accuses the lawmakers who passed the ordinance of doing so at the behest of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the nation’s largest grocery worker union.

“We see this kind of employer pushback every time we pass workers-rights laws, but it’s especially unfortunate in the middle of a pandemic that these grocery employers are going to such great lengths to avoid paying workers,” Anna Minard, a spokesperson for UFCW Local 21, told the newspaper.

“We will absolutely defend the City’s right to see essential grocery workers receive the hazard pay they so rightly deserve,” said Dan Nolte, a spokesperson for Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes.

Kroger has already closed two California locations after similar legislation passed in the state, while Trader Joe’s has raised pay for all workers but canceled a smaller raise set for mid-2021, the paper notes.