DENVER (KDVR) — Two Colorado King Soopers employees are taking action against the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, alleging that union leadership threatened to illegally fine the workers.
The two grocery workers are not union members, according to a release from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund, and chose to keep working during a strike held in February. The 12-day strike impacted over 10,000 employees earlier this year.
Ryan Lamb and Lucas Martin filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that UFCW Local 7 “union bosses” retaliated against them in February by “assessing presumptive fines and scheduling ‘trials’ for each of them, despite the union having no authority to punish non-members.” The charges the two workers filed with the NLRB say that attempts to discipline workers for “post-resignation conduct” violate the National Labor Relations Act.
“Union officials shouldn’t be telling me I can’t earn a living just so they can make a point,” said Lamb in a release from his lawyers with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
“We have the right to keep working and not abide by their rules, and it’s ridiculous that the union officials think they can punish us for exercising that right,” Martin said in the same release.
UFCW Local 7 provided a statement about the charges to FOX31 on Monday.
“The Union denies these allegations. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation filed similar charges following the 2022 strike by UFCW Local 7 against King Soopers. The Government dismissed these allegations as unfounded. In January of 2022, King Soopers workers voted overwhelmingly to strike the Company, and it was workers, not ‘union bosses’ who elected to go on strike.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a fanatical anti-worker and anti-union organization funded by the billionaire class and corporate interests for the purpose of driving down wages, benefits, and other working conditions in workplaces across America through an assault on workplace unions.”
Both UFCW Local 7 and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund mentioned the 2022 strike and resulting charges filed by three King Soopers workers for alleged attempts to illegally fine non-union members. The defense group claimed the incident as a win, saying that the union “backed down” from the fines to prevent NLRB discipline.
The union said that the government dismissed the charges as unfounded. According to NLRB online records, the union submitted withdrawal requests which were approved.
Anthony Sutton is a business strategist and writer with a passion for management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. With years of experience in the corporate world, he shares insights on business growth, strategy, and innovation through management-opleiding.org.
