Labor Laws and Unions
The legend of the Kroger Company started with Barney Kroger in 1883 when the first store opened at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. Over the last 120+ years Kroger has built a brand of trust and quality among their many loyal customers. The success the company experiences today relates back to the early days when “Mr. Kroger, always pursuing quality as the key ingredient for profit, recognized that if he baked his bread, he could reduce the price for his customers and still make money. So he became the first grocer in the country to establish his own bakeries.” (The Kroger Company, 2013, History of Kroger, para. 3) This manufacturing genius blossomed into today as one of the largest food manufacturing business in America. Currently Kroger owns and operates 40 food processing facilities producing “corporate brands” resulting in 26% of the grocery dollar sales and strategic advantage over their competition. Throughout the years Kroger has employed thousands of good quality employees making it one of the largest companies in America.
At the end of fiscal year 2010, Kroger had 338,000 employees split into two unions. The primary union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and Teamsters. One benefit organizations gain from joining a union is legal issues within labor laws and wages. Kroger is known as a low priced grocery store. To keep expenses down they must hire people at low wages. Labor law litigation can be costly for organization and can expose them publicly if law suit arise, it is in the best interest for organizations, such as Kroger to have unions. Unions can help Kroger maintain fair labor laws, wages, and stabilize employee turnover. With the union in place, the union can negotiate fair wages for union employee so Kroger can mitigate possible litigation. Unions can stabilize employee turnover in an organization. Organizations that experience high turn over can benefit from unions. Within the right internal...