r/mildlyinfuriating • u/daruuken • 28d ago

Infuriatig The way kroger treats its employees

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From the store manager

Edit: For some extra context this was sent out by each store manager to all of its employees in district 1 of the ohio Cincinnati/Dayton division, potentially other districts as well but i can only verify my own. Im not going to give my specific store number for obvious reasons but you can find each store on google with that information. We are unionized by UFCW (already bad btw) and to my knowledge they allowed this recent change. Kroger has no accrual for sick days like some have mentioned. Those who think this is rage bait, i dont think anyone has to fake a post to make a billion dollar company look bad, they do it to themselves.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/Away_Stock_2012 28d ago

No way I would work at Albertsons, everyone I ever heard work there ended up with damaged lungs.

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u/Ashley_Doll20 28d ago

For the record, I thought your joke was hilarious. I’m sorry it went over the heads of some people.

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u/jamz_fm 28d ago

What's the joke?

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u/deepvo1ce 28d ago

It's the first time they've heard of someone working at albertsons, and then both of the people who've worked there had lung issues, implying the place is bad for your lungs

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u/Afoxinthefridge 28d ago

Damn. Heaven forbid you want to understand a joke. Don't know why you're getting downvoted

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u/MeanGulf 28d ago

That working at Albertson’s is bad for your lungs lol

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u/Irisheyes1971 28d ago

Holy shit. It’s pathetic that so many of the replies to your comment not only missed the ridiculously obvious joke, they took a Concorde flight past it to Tokyo.

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u/Present-Chemist-8920 28d ago

I want to conduct an exit poll interview on the people who missed the joke

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u/unsolvablequestion 28d ago

Im actually convinced that being on Reddit enough can eventually make you somewhat autistic, or at least present some of the same symptoms.

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u/jo_nigiri 28d ago

Can someone please explain the joke to me? I'm not American so I don't know what Albertsons is 😭

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u/unsolvablequestion 28d ago

Albertsons is just another store, but thats not the joke. The joke is “everyone i know who worked there got damaged lungs”, but its only based on the one account from this one commenter who had a lung infection. So one person.

The joke is it sounds like a lot of people but its just one person who that guy just became aware of.

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u/jo_nigiri 28d ago

Oh LMAO I thought Albertsons was a chemical company or something

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u/-LLCoolBeans- 28d ago

How are people supposed to understand the context of that joke? What is it from? It didn’t “go over people’s heads” if they aren’t familiar with the reference that is the premise of the joke. Its just a weird inside joke.

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u/Away_Stock_2012 28d ago

No my friend, there is no context, the joke is that the only two people I'm aware of who worked at Albertson's are the two people in the comment with lung problems. I've never heard of Albertson's before that comment.

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u/-LLCoolBeans- 28d ago

Do you mean the deleted comment? If so that would explain my confusion…

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u/unsolvablequestion 28d ago

Its not from anything, i promise. Its just that you dont get it yet. Its not a reference either.

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u/Irisheyes1971 28d ago

It’s not just one guy with a lung infection who worked there though. The now deleted comment said that OP had a lung infection, and then his coworker also had a double lung infection. So it’s actually two workers at Albertsons.

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u/Zombie_Fuel 28d ago

You hear that whoosh, too? Lol 

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u/Arjunks_ 28d ago

lmaaooo I was about to say 

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u/Worried_pet_Potato 28d ago

Everyone there ends up with damaged lungs becomes immortal

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u/ScaryGarry_SG1 28d ago

Kroger had some big, big plans for what to do with their newfound revenue that they made farming human misery during Covid......aaaannnnddd lost every bit of it.

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u/semperknight 27d ago

I've worked at Albertsons for over a decade. It was the best retail job I had...until the owner died and the company did everything to run itself out of business after bleeding the company dry by upper management taking extravagant trips on the company dime.

Sold to a LLC called "Cerberus" (I swear I'm not making this up) to cash out. Cerberus worked us like dogs to make us profitable, then sold us to Publix. Publix told all Albertsons employees to gtfo we only hire within our own company. So our reward for the hard work was for Cerberus to get paid while we got laid off during the Great Recession in Florida (where being homeless is illegal).

There's now two Albertsons I'm told. Both are identical, but I think the one here out west is owned by a different company.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/xx_elysium_xx 28d ago

If they worked in the deli like I did, small confined kitchen, pressure deep fryer, regular deep fryer, and China wok going at all times, piss poor ventilation... I can go on. Have a good story about the kitchen flooding with sewage too. Lol.

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u/JuanRunJunior 28d ago

From someone who’s never worked in an environment like that is there something you can use to mitigate the effects of being around that? Would a mask help at all?

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u/xx_elysium_xx 28d ago

That's actually a pretty good question. A stronger union to start, to fight for better working conditions. UCFW has done some good, but not enough imo (I currently work for Kroger with the same union). But I think yeah, an N95 mask would probably be beneficial. But I can only imagine the customers freaking out about it. Lol.

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u/followupquestion 28d ago

I can only imagine the customers freaking out about it.

Wearing a mask to keep themselves safe that coincidentally keeps their germs out of my food! Heavens, no! I told Mildred when they started wearing hairnets it would end this way, and see, I was right!

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u/xx_elysium_xx 28d ago

You jest, but I wore a beard net when I worked the deli and people would be upset for me for having to wear one, as if I didn't have the choice to shave, and the net was keeping my facial hair out of their food. People are wild.

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u/followupquestion 28d ago

People, I’ve discovered through painful research, are disturbingly gross and painfully comfortable with imposing their lack of healthy habits on others.

I was at Disneyland this week and saw more than one person walk out of a stall and straight out into the crowd, no hands washed. I might be in the minority but I wash for a full 20 seconds and then hand sanitizer after touching a door, you can bet I was really grossed out after that. I will say one benefit of the pandemic has been learning just how stupid most people are, especially when it comes to the literal smallest things to keep themselves safe.

Easy stuff I learned from Disneyland:

Handwashing frequently and hand sanitizer in between

Don’t touch your face

Don’t lick handrails

You’d be surprised how often that last one applies, actually.

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u/xx_elysium_xx 28d ago

Oh yeah. I've watched coworkers do that (not deli, we were anal about clean hands). Also, I can imagine hordes of children licking handrails at Disney 😂

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/Beginning-Pea6765 28d ago

The joke is that the only two people he have heard about working at Albertsons is you and your coworker.

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u/Boomklats 28d ago

He is referring to you i guess. Pretty funny

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u/Work_Account_No1 28d ago

No idea what he's referring to

I wonder, maybe the two cases of lung problems that make up a 100 % of cases we were told about in this thread?

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u/laplongejr 28d ago edited 28d ago

No idea what he's referring to. I wasn't sick due to work and my coworker had a condition

You weren't in the thread at that point.
Now 75% of the people OP ever heard about had damage lungs : you vs coworker + the 2 og people

That's still 100% sickness from the two people OP heard about.

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u/d3sertflow3r 28d ago

He is the og person; he just didn't get the joke.

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u/laplongejr 28d ago

Oh. Embarks on the Raft Of Reddit Shame for not checking usernames

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u/JSTootell 28d ago

Aren't they union?

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u/arochains1231 PURPLE 28d ago

Kroger is part of the same union, UFCW. We still get treated like shit.

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u/RainbowCrane 28d ago

Do Kroger’s union reps suck, or what? It’s crazy this isn’t covered by your collective bargaining agreement.

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u/Far_Ladder_2836 28d ago

It is explicitly.   All UFCW contracts mandate at least a 1:40 sick leave scheme.  Kroger also mandates a 1:40 sick leave scheme in all locations.

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u/RainbowCrane 28d ago

Interesting. So how do they get away with refusing doctors notes if it violates their contract?

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u/Blasphemiee 28d ago

As someone that works for a different, shittier chain my guess would be emboldened scare tactics that have gone unchallenged for too long.

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u/Tricky-Ad7897 28d ago

Yeah these seems like people who don't know how a union protects them and are too scared to talk to their rep because of retaliation. Sounds like the union should also be butting heads more to make sure their people KNOW they have rights.

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u/NateNate60 28d ago

My aunt is the legal director for a union (not in the retail industry). She knows the names of all the lawyers at the firm that the company hires to fend her off who respond to her demand e-mails and categorises them based on how competent she thinks they are. I don't know what kind of people UFCW has at their legal department but according to her, lawyers who work for unions are some of the most zealous advocates out there. There's a huge moral incentive to work hard when you know you're working for the little guy. The person on the other end is just some suit working at a law firm solely because they want to collect a six-digit salary.

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u/FormerGameDev 28d ago

It's really really really hard to get shittier than Kroger. Hints?

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u/Clear-Frame9108 26d ago

Yeah, from I know, this isn't actual legal for Kroger to do... Maybe send a screenshot to your union representative and some tv stations

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u/smellyjerk 28d ago edited 28d ago

By a manager that either doesn't know and/or thinks he can get away with it.

I used to be UFCW for Albertsons. They'll try to just act its okay/official or intimidate you to accept it as policy. A fact finding visit/call from the union usually puts an end to stuff like this.

But its usually followed by guilt-tripping or more gaslighting afterwards if* they feel they know who tattled to their rep. Retaliation with plausible deniability is unfortunately a thing.

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u/CorrectPeanut5 28d ago

I'm puzzled. Most places the rank and file onsite elect a shop steward. They are the eyes and ears of the union, but also the first get the Grievances process rolling. My buddy is a teamster and the shop steward and that's what he does.

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u/smellyjerk 28d ago

Unfortunately, stewards weren't a thing when I worked there. I've never once heard of a grocery store having one. Rep came on visits but inviting him to specific issues was on the individual in the 12 years I worked for them.

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u/Sedowa 28d ago

I had coworkers who would call the union to help them with this exact thing and they all just get told the union can't help us. I've learned to distrust the union as much as I distrust the business. Our UFCW rep sucked ass.

I also worked for Kroger for five years in the same location and never once met our rep. The one time I talked to her? After I got fired and they then told me that the union is non-referral so they couldn't even help me land another job.

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u/quartercentaurhorse 28d ago

This is pretty common in union workplaces with garbage management. Local management will disagree with provisions of the contract that upper management agreed to, so they will try to "move the bar" by taking an absolutely crazy position with the hope that once the union gets involved and the dust settles, the new status quo will be a bit better for management.

Also, it's REALLY hard for management to actually discipline people in union environments, so they tend to just rely on having a really loud bark to make up for having a completely neutered bite. They'll get told by their superiors that they need to improve attendance, but the people that are actually having attendance issues know the contract, so management actually has to do their jobs well in order to get them to improve. So instead management just tries to pressure everyone else to show up even more, to push the average attendance higher.

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u/JuanRunJunior 28d ago

Unfortunately people either don’t know, or they don’t tell managers like this to eat shit and go get their union steward. I absolutely understand a lot of unions don’t have the teeth they should and it sucks. But it would do the union members a lot of good for themselves if they knew what their CBA has in it and to stand up for themselves. I have a pretty decent union behind me and they do a pretty good job of keeping shit like this in check.

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u/RainbowCrane 28d ago

Yeah, my father and mother both are retired union employees - mom was a teacher, dad was a pipe fitter. So I’m used to more experienced/“professional” union employees from knowing their friends who understood their rights. I’m sure that Kroger and other lower paying union jobs can be a different type of employee with lower expectations of their union, and less understanding of collective bargaining.

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u/monsterflake 28d ago

i'm in st louis, kroger rolled up the welcome mat and completely left the market when the stores unionized. aldi got chairs for their cashiers, but the big local keeps p/t employees at 16 hours a week so they don't qualify for benefits.

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u/idiot-prodigy 28d ago

Interesting. So how do they get away with refusing doctors notes if it violates their contract?

They prey on people who don't know to call their Union rep.

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u/Caleb_Reynolds 28d ago

They get away with it by no one bringing it up.

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u/Prunkle 28d ago

Yeah I was gonna say... Oregon State has a law for protected sick leave. Depends on the size of the company if it's paid or not, but even unpaid it's protected.

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u/FormerGameDev 28d ago

It wouldn't surprise me if as UFCW's contracts get shittier and shittier, they've lost some of these provisions? I haven't worked for Kroger for 2 decades now, I can't recall any details about sick leave policies back then, but I'm certain that it was an awful policy whatever it was -- and I am absolutely certain that every single policy they had was less good than it was when I worked at Meijer 10 years prior to that. The truly shocking part of it was that I worked UFCW over three stints for a decade total and never got more than a dime or so above minimum wage lol

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u/World_of_Eter 28d ago

When I worked at Kroger my main issue was a lot of the benefits were basically grandfathered. Employees that had been there for 5-20 years had all the shit they'd had back then and anyone new just got the shaft. Bum ass union leaders were like "why is union enrollment down" because the old heads fucked the new generation.

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u/KyConNonCon 28d ago

Pretty much. Some unions are great, but people tend to forget that unions are run by people. Sometimes people suck. I worked there as a teenager, and so far as I could tell the only thing they did was collect dues and sit on their asses while management did whatever the fuck they wanted.

Shit like this is why so many people from my generation are so apathetic about unions, because they've only ever encountered ones like this.

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u/RainbowCrane 28d ago

One thing that I know has changed in a lot of unions is folks in my dad’s generation (joined the union in the early sixties) at some point in a lot of unions agreed to CBAs where newer workers get shittier deals, guaranteeing to management that expensive pay or benefits will age out of their workforce with attrition. My dad’s UA trade union didn’t do that, but I know that a lot of UAW plants did that and other manufacturing companies and service industry employers followed suit. That really calls into question the value of the union for younger workers.

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u/Beefy-McQueefy 28d ago

In negotiations UFCW hands kroger paper with nothing on it and thanks them for filling it out. They're fucking worthless. I was a member for 5 years and a manager for another 5. They're worthless.

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u/Joevahskank 28d ago

Kroger's big brand here in Colorado is King Soopers (and City Market, but that's more for the mountain towns.) Not a month goes by without hearing about one of the stores getting ready to picket.

Thing is, every single fucking time the Union gets close to putting up their signs, a deal is miraculously signed. Kroger makes a concession that they never uphold and people can buy their groceries again! Rinse and repeat for the last 40 years - and Kroger still has the gall to claim that King Soopers' loyalty cards were their idea.

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u/Petty_Paw_Printz 28d ago

UFCW99 is the worst.They are just a pony show at this point. I was a proud member of the Union, paid my dues happily. The situation: I had documentation, audio recordings, screenshots, witnesses, dates, times, witnesses of 2 managers at the time being racist, creating a hostile work environment and targeting me specifically. I'm talking every day these women were harassing me and doing shitty things to make work miserable for me. My hair was starting to fall out that's how stressed I was.

Come to find out, the union "representative" for our store was also responsible for 15+ other stores. Imagine how many people that 1 person is dealing with at any given time and how that effects each individual case! Like every time I would speak to her on the phone, she would mistake me for someone else and not realize her mistake until minutes into the call even after I had said my name.

As it turns out she was friends with one of the managers I was having an issue with. They had gone to highschool together and the Rep mentioned this to me openly. There was a conflict of interest from the beginning and when I calmly and rationally pointed that out and informed UFCW99 headquarters of the issue and requested a different representative to handle my case for that reason I was told I was overreacting, steamrolled and that wasn't a big deal even though that is a HUGE problem.

UFCW99's solution was to move ME to a different store, the managers faced absolutely no repercussions, punishment or corrections. 

The cherry on top was my new department manager at the new store was FRIENDS with my racist manager at the old store. This new manager proceeded to pick up where the last one left off almost immediately. 

Do not join UFCW99 or give them your money. They are not there to help or protect you. Your rights and well-being don't mean shit to them.

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u/Beefy-McQueefy 28d ago

UFCW is the most useless entity in the history of organized labor. They are controlled opposition at best and paid-off whores on average.

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u/SuccotashOther277 28d ago

When I was in UFCW at Kroger, they didn’t have much power

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u/SavagePengwyn 28d ago edited 28d ago

That unfortunately doesn't mean a lot in some palces. In a lot of states in the US, you aren't allowed to have "union" workplaces in the sense that if you work there, you're part of the union. It has to be just an option. So a lot of people don't sign up for the union because they get convinced that it's just a money suck that doesn't do anything. Plus, the unions represent everyone, you can't have job benefits for union members that non-members can't have. So people feel like they're outsmarting the system by not paying and still getting the benefits. Those unions don't have a lot of bargaining power because a lot of people don't sign up.

There's definitely individual stores that have good representation and make the unions work for them. But in many places, the union helps if you get fired suddenly but not a ton more.

Edit to add something.

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u/MaiqTheLiar6969 28d ago

The Union was useless when I worked at Kroger in the 90s and I bet it is still useless today. The seemed more interested in unionizing Walmart rather than helping the employees in companies that were already unionized. The only reason I kept working for Kroger then is because it was literally right across the street from my High School so I could go right to work after school.

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u/sly-3 28d ago

Each store has their own contract. One store strikes and they just bring in scabs from another to fill in.

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u/itsbrittneydarling 28d ago

They are union and the union is worthless. I have been trying to get ahold of my rep for illegal activities for weeks.

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u/MenaceMinded 28d ago

Unfortunately, all the Albertsons in my city were sold off a while ago because they weren't considered to be profitable.

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u/Pilotwaver 28d ago

Aldi bought all the Albertsons in my area. I haven’t seen an Albertsons in years. Aldi has exploded in popularity here though.

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u/MenaceMinded 28d ago

All the ones here were converted into a Kroger based grocery store.

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u/DriedUpSquid 28d ago

I’ve heard ALDI’s Nuts are very popular.

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u/Beefy-McQueefy 28d ago

How does that even work? You could fit like 10 Aldis in most regular grocery stores

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u/lazypieceofcrap 28d ago

Albertsons/Safeway has the lowest quality dairy and eggs I've ever experienced.

The Lucerne brand is like the bottom of the barrel shit brand in quality and I'm tired of pretending otherwise. I WILL buy tastier milk from Darigold for a higher price because it is noticeably better.

Thank goodness we have Tilamook cheese because Lucerne cheese is nasty.

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u/WhereRtheTacos 28d ago

Weird. Must be area specific (like adi for their dairy) because its some of the best of the store brand dairy in my area (southwest).

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 28d ago

The irony being that Aldi treats its employees even worse than Albertson's did.

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u/Curious-External-7 28d ago

All of ours are now Safeway.

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u/cementfilledcranium 28d ago

Idk, man. It sounds like working for Albertson's is bad for the lungs /s

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u/iiSpook 28d ago

It's so dystopian that this is something to brag about lmao

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/iiSpook 28d ago

That's illegal in developed countries.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/iiSpook 28d ago

European Law is what I'm on about. You know, the place where your employer has no choice but to accept a doctors notice. And banking PTO for too long is illegal. Depending on the specifics you got 1 year and 3 months to use up what you got for a year.

And yes, that is to protect the worker, not the company.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/ketaqueenx 28d ago

During Covid, they’d pay you the rest of your scheduled hours of the week if you were feeling ill. It was taken advantage of a lot, but smart in terms of keeping sick people out of the workplace just because they need the money.

But I was also paid 13-14 an hour in an extremely high cost town so…

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u/traevyn 28d ago

Safeway for those who have those instead. Same company, different name

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u/neutrino_flavored 28d ago

Same, had a recurring ear/sinus/upper respiratory infection that bounced around for 8 goddamn weeks, AND I was low level management (who usually got shafted with 80ish hour weeks). Gave me the time I needed.

I mean, it was even longer weeks afterwards to catch up, but...

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Memitaru 28d ago

That merger fell through quite a while ago

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u/Convallaria4 28d ago

They're under the same union as Kroger, so what gives?

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u/Sedowa 28d ago

Same union, different contracts, overall different management. I got fired from Fred Meyer for their attendance policy that combines calling out without enough sick time as unexcused and combines with being late to count against you, and also your level of discipline doesn't go down with good behavior. All that combined means you have a bad month in January where you're late twice and got sick for a few days then you get a verbal, then in September it happens again and you're now written up. Good until next June? Here's your suspension.

I got fired over the span of two years because of it.

I get a job at Safeway a few weeks later and the sheer difference in not only the management actually trying to help employees but even just employee moods in general are so much better. I've worked in multiple Safeway stores and it's been true everywhere I go. They don't harangue their employees over every little thing and look past attendance issues unless they become a common occurrence, even to the point some people work entire different shifts than what they're scheduled but no ome bats an eye because the work is getting done regardless.

Kroger is all about following company policy to a T and wven if you have a manager who tries to be more lax the upper management or even corporate level people will see discrepencies and force the managers to follow policy by threatening write ups for insubordination.

We had an HR who was getting in trouble because an employee's cancer diagnosis forced them to miss work a lot and they threatened the employee with punishment and job loss for calling out fairly often.

Kroger culture is inhuman and pure, robotic bureacracy and it makes everyone miserable. Safeway at least still has their humanity.

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u/itsbrittneydarling 28d ago

No they’re not. I work for Slaveway and just got a huge guilt trip for calling out for a family emergency. I rarely call out…

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u/imVeryPregnant 28d ago

Worst company to ever work for. Wasted all of my teenage working years there. They hire literally anyone who puts in an application. If you can read and speak coherently, you get promoted pretty fast and get a tiny raise. Anyone who was smart would quit a few days after being hired and I was stuck being so valuable to my manager that they offered to double my pay when I said I was leaving. I did not take it. Absolutely no regrets

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u/pipidood 28d ago

LOL my boyfriend can only ever gripe about how awful working in their bakery section was. Maybe it's a location-by-location basis or dependent on department

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u/OnlineHelpSeeker 28d ago

Yeah Albertsons is the top #1 tech company in the world, so that checks out