Grocery prices have surged in recent years, rising by almost 27% since the months before the pandemic. Workers inside grocery stores have been hit particularly hard.

“We’re often the people down at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to wages,” said Conor Watson, a meat cutter at a Kroger-owned Fred Meyer store in Ellensburg, Washington. “And we’re very, very impacted with these rising prices.”

Witnessing inflation’s rapid rise on shelves was “incredibly frustrating”, he said. “We were, every week, going around and changing our price tags and increasing the prices on items – and seeing our wages do nothing.”

More than 3.2 million Americans work in grocery stores in the US. While the median hourly wage for non supervisor employees has increased from $14.91 in 2020 to $17.88 in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average weekly hours dropped from 30 hours in 2020 to 28.5 last year – a record low – as grocery chains cut back workers’ hours.

Grocery workers’ wages are “definitely not keeping up” with the “price gouging” committed by grocery chains, said Kyong Barry, a front-end manager at an Albertsons-owned Safeway in Auburn, Washington.

“We’re all struggling,” she said. “It’s really hard. Your hours get cut. Your workload goes up because you have more stuff you have to do. The math doesn’t jive, and even our customers are having issues trying to get groceries.”

“All everyone wants” is to make a living, said Barry. “We’re not asking for millions and millions of dollars. We’re asking for a good, livable wage where you can enjoy raising your family, being able to pay your bills, being able to eat and not eat stuff that are always on sale because you can’t afford good nutritional food.”

‘The math doesn’t jive’

The price of many staples have climbed far beyond the average rate of food inflation. According to data compiled by Food & Water Watch, beef prices rose 44.8% between December 2019 and last month, while egg prices rose 119.5%, ham prices 53.5%, and whole chicken prices rose37%.

As grocery workers’ wages struggled to keep up, the food and grocery corporations employing them have generated billions of dollars in profit. “You just have to look at the numbers to see that corporations in the food industry: they’re making windfall profits above and beyond what they need to cover any kind of rising costs,” said Amanda Starbuck, research director at Food & Water Watch.

“The last thing that we need is to give them more control and more of a monopoly, especially once you get to a certain point where they can afford to take losses to keep competition down. That’s when it becomes almost impossible to fight back,” said Watson, the Kroger worker.

And yet, Kroger and Albertsons – two of the largest grocery chains in the US – have proposed a merger. Their plan is being opposed by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which represents 835,000 grocery workers across the US and Canada. Challenges against the merger are currently pending in state and federal courts.

Kroger and Albertsons have already spent over $1bn on the merger. During a hearing on the merger, one Kroger executive admitted that the company had increased prices on milk and eggs by more than was necessary to account for inflation.

The company refuted claims the testimony admitted price gouging and claimed the merger was “pro-union” as the company has added 100,000 unionized jobs since 2012.

“Kroger committed to build on this work by investing $1bn to raise associate wages and comprehensive benefits and ensuring zero layoffs or store closures related to the merger,” said a Kroger spokesperson.

“Additionally, Kroger, Albertsons and C&S have committed to honoring all current collective bargaining agreements. The only winners if this merger is blocked will be larger, non-unionized retailers who will continue to fight union growth.”

But opponents have argued the merger will result in less competition, store closures, job losses and higher prices for consumers, and noted promises made by the company in favor of the merger are not legally enforceable.

“A lot of this inflation is driven by greed. And I think it’s not a stretch to say that a lot of that is because of the consolidation in the grocery industry,” said Joe Mizrahi, secretary treasurer at UFCW Local 21 in Seattle. “They don’t have the check of having enough competition. So obviously a merger would make that problem even worse for the consumer and in our estimation, drive prices up.”

Inside grocery stores, many customers are feeling “like there’s a race to the bottom”, with “longer checkout lines, more self checkouts, fewer people in the aisles”, added Mizrahi. “I do think that actually unionization is one of the biggest backstops we have against that. That same greed that is driving prices going up is also driving the diminished standards in the stores.”

Prioritizing profits

Amid widespread corporate consolidation in the food and grocery retail industry, alternative and specialty grocery chains have gained popularity in recent years. But despite marketing and branding efforts painting many of these firms as progressive and ethical, workers describe similar issues – low pay, under-staffing, poor working conditions and union opposition – as their colleagues at larger retailers.

For the past several years, workers at Trader Joe’s have pushed for a first union contract. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has fielded numerous unfair labor practice charges against the chain, and its opposition to unions. Grocery workers at the Oregon supermarket chain New Seasons have also faced similar opposition.

In May, workers at a Natural Grocers store in Norman, Oklahoma, became the first store in the company to successfully unionize with UFCW. Natural Grocers is an organic supermarket chain with 168 stores across 21 states.

“There’s a lot of lip service, and talking about, the kind of company they want to be,” said a Natural Grocers employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “But when it actually came down to having a contract that would hold the company account, having a unionized store, that was so out of left field and scary for them that, they’ve been very frantic. They were so shocked when it passed.”

Workers claimed the company aggressively opposed the unionization efforts, hiring union avoidance consultants and holding captive audience anti-union meetings in a storage closet at the store, though the company denied this. They cited stagnant pay, high healthcare costs, and unfair policy changes and enforcement as driving factors to unionize.

A subsequent unionizing effort in Tucson, Arizona, came up short, although challenged ballots that could be determinative and objections to the election are still under review at the NLRB.

William Gamble had worked at Natural Grocers since 2014, and was one of several workers fired before the union election was held. Workers allege this was prompted by their mobilization efforts.

“We had almost no income coming in for two months with the kids, terrifying,” he said. “We applied for [nutrition program] WIC and food stamps. We came very close to losing our home.

“They bankrupted all of us. We were living check to check, and they just threw us out – after some of us [had] almost a decade of service to the company.”

Several unfair labor practice charges were filed by workers against the company that are also currently under review, including allegations of firing workers in retaliation. The union is petitioning to demand those workers be reinstated.

“There was so much pressure from them, and so much kind of emotional manipulation. People felt scared,” said Ben Renfrow, a former employee at the Oklahoma store involved in the union effort. “They want to be able to maintain the image of being an ethical alternative grocery store and profit from that.

“In reality, they are a company, much like other publicly traded companies, that prioritizes profits and pleasing shareholders over fair treatment.”

Natural Grocers denied all allegations in the unfair labor practice charges, including allegations of firing workers in retaliation for organizing, and of anti-union bias, but did not disclose how much money the company spent in response to the union drives.

“The suggestion that Natural Grocers engages in favoritism and anti-union bias couldn’t be further from the truth and we unequivocally deny these allegations,” said a Natural Grocers spokesperson, Katie Macarelli. “Natural Grocers is a success because it treats employees fairly. All claims of unfair labor practices by Natural Grocers are baseless.

“In Norman, Oklahoma, a thin majority of crew members voted to organize, and Natural Grocers is currently bargaining a contract; whereas, in Tucson, the employees voted to reject unionization after a free and fair election. In both instances, Natural Grocers continued to treat all employees in those stores with the same dignity and respect it treats all employees in the organization.”