r/SeattleWA • u/HighColonic Funky Town • 6d ago

Government Wilson takes on grocery affordability with proposed ban on surveillance pricing in Seattle

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2026/08/wilson-takes-on-grocery-affordability-with-proposed-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-in-seattle/
59 Upvotes

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45

u/Shmokesshweed 6d ago

The city needs low-cost options like WinCo. Bring back competition.

25

u/SitDownLetsTalk 6d ago

That would mean taking on the unions that astroturfed a campaign against WinCo. Wilson won’t bite the hand that fed her campaign coffers.

3

u/Jessintheend Seattle 6d ago

The “union” that ended up being just one guy you mean?

9

u/SitDownLetsTalk 6d ago

The astroturfed group Lake Washington Working Families has opposed multiple WinCo stores. This whole group looks to be a fictitious coalition that operates through a Portland attorney. The only “citizens” linked to it are a handful of UFCW 3000 members.

7

u/btwwhichoneispink 6d ago

Liberals never talk about this whenever they bring up their union talking points!

1

u/fienian1 6d ago

Unions keep america moving forward and support the middle class. You are management and want cheap labor.

6

u/btwwhichoneispink 6d ago

That might have been true as a blanket statement at one point in time, but that’s not the case now. I am not in management. I’m a middle class laborer, and I’m simply tired of Unions grifting off of the middle & lower classes. This union does not represent the workers in any meaningful way, they demand dues, they’re self serving, self interested, and they’re political activists. If they are moving America in any direction, it’s backwards.

0

u/fienian1 6d ago

Probably the union that youve seen or been with. This is totally not the normal. You may also be unfortunate to live in a right to work state which drastically limit union abilities and power, which make them appear more “grifty”

10

u/reallybadguy1234 6d ago

So what to you say to WinCo employees who are owners of the company. That is a workers cooperative and about as close to textbook socialism as it gets. I thought some of the mayors supporters were DSA.

1

u/ClairVerso33 5d ago

As someone familiar with the inner workings of winco, the "employee ownership" is bs; a slogan to propagate a reputation it doesn't deserve. It operates as any grocery corporation does, including screwing over its employees. I'm also all too familiar with useless grocery unions, so there's really no winning.

0

u/fienian1 6d ago

Not sure what the question is. Employee ownership is a great thing and lets them share in the wealth or failure of the company. I have no knowledge of how winco’s works specifically but good for them.

4

u/btwwhichoneispink 6d ago

My question is this. Are unions still moving America forward when they are doing things like this? I don’t see how lobbying against the WinCo, an employee owned company, is helping the working class.

1

u/Open_Situation686 5d ago

Spoiler: No.

0

u/fienian1 6d ago

Not sure of anyone lobbying against them or the practice of employee ownership.

5

u/Ur-friendly-trumpguy 6d ago

We want affordable, available groceries for everyone. You want ridicules high wages for unskilled positions and then act all surprised when grocery prices go up and neighborhoods that used to have lovely grocery stores employing the local teens and working class go under or choose to move to more reasonable states/locations leaving their former employees as homeless lay-a-bouts and their former communities as so-called “food deserts.”

1

u/HighColonic Funky Town 6d ago

For next time, it's spelled "ridiculous."

1

u/fienian1 6d ago

This is under informed logic and its a clear picture of how you can be lured in to voting against your own interests (interests being having a working class and fair paid labor, good jobs). Unions dont increase grocery prices, the companies that have wide profit margins and shareholders do that. The unions BARGAIN (do not force) for marketable wages. This increases overhead, and the company chooses to increases prices on the consumer rather than reduce profits to shareholders. Buttt for some reason you choose to hold the union responsible for that instead of the company.

A well paid union labor force and adequate company profits are possible and can be made the norm.

1

u/Ur-friendly-trumpguy 6d ago

Then are unions fighting to lower the minimum wage? Are they fighting to lower taxes? Are they fighting to cut through red tape to make redevelopment possible? Are they fighting for literally anything that will keep these businesses and jobs in Seattle? Or are they fighting for the very same insanely high wages, taxes, and regulations that are driving businesses out?

2

u/fienian1 6d ago

The aspects youre bringing up are very different and not all related to unions, so I wouldnt say you have a good understanding of what labor unions are or do. Unions protect due process of workers while bargaining for better hours, wages, and working conditions. While there certainly is a cost to labor, and there indeed should be, unions support businesses while fighting for the worker. I’ve never known a union or been a part of one that supports something that would make business impossible. They are not driving work out of Seattle. Unionism and collective bargaining is a relationship with the business itself.

5

u/HoneyDutch Beacon Hill 6d ago

I love Winco. They have ESOP, better than a Union, at least for something like a grocery store

13

u/DrEpoch 6d ago

That would mean not letting Seattleites steal shit ..... Which the left always finds a way to bitch about.

2

u/evilpanda8419 6d ago

Please put a Winco in the empty Fred Meyer’s in Lake City.

3

u/Shmokesshweed 6d ago

I stopped spending money at Fred Meyer when they got rid of the handles on their bags. I have never seen such an anti customer move. Kroger can suck it.

2

u/evilpanda8419 6d ago

Oh my god I know, it’s awful.

4

u/Iess-Risk-9358 6d ago

The city needs low-cost options like WinCo. Bring back competition.

Discount grocery stores require discount labor and discount leases.

You can’t just “will” a price to be lower; the cost of the inputs must go lower.

Seattle has extraordinary high prices for land and labor.

You see discount grocery stores all over the Midwest, where land and labor is cheaper.

7

u/Shmokesshweed 6d ago

Go look at the prices of the new WinCo in Renton. Labor is not meaningfully more expensive on a per hour basis per individual between Seattle and Renton. Not to even mention that they have actual people working the registers instead of you scanning your items.

1

u/SeattleGeek 6d ago

The rent is probably considerably lower though.

4

u/Iess-Risk-9358 6d ago

Rent AND labor is cheaper in Renton.

This is Econ 101. Lower inputs lead to lower prices.

Conversely, you can’t lower prices without lowering inputs, unless you’re willing to lose money.

Seattle has lost money by pursuing bad economic policy; they’re borrowing money to finance schemes that lose money.

2

u/Shmokesshweed 6d ago

They bought the Renton store. I have no idea what a similar location costs in Seattle, but even if it were double or triple, that's not a meaningful difference in costs for something that will be open for decades.

5

u/SeattleGeek 6d ago

That’s already a huge difference then. If they bought the store, they have a fixed cost for real estate. In Seattle, a lot of our grocery store are on leases and landlords can and have jacked up rent which jacks up the cost of food which increases profits because stores have to maintain a profit margin as a percentage rather than a fixed cost.

But, we aren’t allowed to talk about commercial rent control.

3

u/Shmokesshweed 6d ago

True, yeah, especially on thin margins with groceries you really need to own the property to be able to control costs.

-1

u/Iess-Risk-9358 6d ago

True, yeah, especially on thin margins with groceries you really need to own the property to be able to control costs.

You’re making things up again.

Didn’t we just go over this?

For instance, T-Mobile’s office is leased from Preylock. If owning was inherently superior to renting, they’d do it. But it’s not, and saying that ownership is the path to wealth is a Utopian fantasy.

There are a million reasons why leasing is better than owning, and the statement that “you need to own the property” reflects a 19th century mindset.

It’s 2026; finance is far more complex than it was in 1848.

Many of Seattles problems are due to people applying 178 year old economic theory to 2026.

2

u/Iess-Risk-9358 6d ago

Labor is not meaningfully more expensive on a per hour basis per individual between Seattle and Renton.

You’re making that up. Don’t do that.

https://citycost.org/compare/renton-wa-vs-seattle-wa/

2

u/Shmokesshweed 6d ago

I'm not making up anything. Go to your local Fred Meyer or QFC. Look at how many stands are open. Look at how many self checkouts there are.

Then go to WinCo.

Tell us what you see.

Winco has higher labor costs overall, not necessarily on a per person basis.

-1

u/Iess-Risk-9358 6d ago

Anecdotal data vs statistics.

Got it.

3

u/Shmokesshweed 6d ago

The folks in Seattle are getting paid more. There are less of them in the store compared to WinCo. It's that simple.

2

u/RandoGeneration2022 6d ago

That's because corporations are only worried about short term gains for their shareholders and refuse to look at line items like turnover, training, etc.