FOREST PARK, GA. – Your local Kroger supermarket might experience a delay in restocking some of your favorite items. The trucks that occupy Georgia’s highways and interstate roadways are full of trucks delivering goods to supermarkets across the state. One of the country’s largest supermarket chains and one of the country’s largest unions may have something to say about how this story plays out.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 30 truck drivers at the Kroger fulfillment facility in Forest Park. Last year, an overwhelming majority voted to join the Washington, D.C.-based union. On Wednesday morning, it was confirmed that the union had authorized a strike. That means a strike can occur any day now, according to Teamsters representative Colin McCullough.
The Atlanta Voice spoke with McCullough by phone Wednesday morning to further validate the press release sent out to media outlets on Tuesday afternoon.
On Wednesday, a visit to the fulfillment center’s entrance saw trucks making their way in and out. Drivers lined their trucks on Kroger Drive and waited for their turn to enter the fulfillment center for pickup. Their next destinations were unknown, but that is much less important than the goods on the trucks and the people making the deliveries happen.
In the release from the Teamsters, Director of the Teamsters Warehouse Division, Tom Erickson, said about the drivers at the Forest Park fulfillment center: “These workers organized with the Teamsters to win better wages, real benefits, and respect on the job. If Kroger refuses to deliver, we’ll do whatever it takes to hold them accountable. We will never allow any company to shortchange our members.”
There has been interest in the strike from Atlanta-based organizations as well. The Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta, Inc., which holds a weekly community forum on Mondays at 11 a.m. at the Vicars Community Center on Cascade Avenue, is also included in the Teamsters’ press release. Rev. Shanan E. Jones, President of the Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta, Inc., is quoted in the release:
“It is a shameful and unjust practice to disenfranchise the very people who sacrifice daily to help a corporation like Kroger achieve and surpass its profit goals,” Shanan said.
The Atlanta Voice contacted Shanan and the Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta, Inc., for comment and is awaiting a reply.
The Kroger Co., which is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the third-largest supermarket chain in the United States, according to data from GourmetPro.com.
Kroger’s Forest Park fulfillment center is on the 2000 block of Anvil Road.