Colorado’s largest private sector union violated federal labor law in its treatment of its internal, union-represented employees by refusing to bargain with them in good faith and by inviting workers to resign in response to their complaints about working conditions, an administrative law judge found.
National Labor Relations Board Judge Eleanor Laws also ruled that Kim Cordova, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 7, tried to persuade her employees to drop their association with their union — another violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
Laws’ findings are roiling some in Colorado’s union community, who fear how the report may reflect on the broader labor movement. They’re also notable given the wide reach and power of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 7, known as UFCW 7, which represents 23,000 people who work at grocery stores, meat packing facilities, food processing plants and other workplaces in Colorado and Wyoming.
The union and Cordova have been in the news a lot in recent years. They fought for meatpacking worker protections at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and then made headlines again in 2022 when King Soopers employees in Colorado went on strike to successfully persuade the grocer to increase wages — by up to $5 an hour for some.
But the 53-page report issued Feb. 8 by Laws, as well as Colorado Sun interviews with several UFCW 7 employees, reveal that trouble has been brewing behind the scenes between Cordova and her staff of a few dozen people.
“I could not work there another day, not with the way she is running that place,” Randy Blea told The Sun in an interview. Blea started working at UFCW in 2011 as a union representative but was fired in September in what he says was retaliation for his criticism.
Cordova, who is running for reelection this year to a sixth three-year term as president, and other members of the UFCW 7 leadership team didn’t respond to multiple requests from The Sun for an interview.
Pressure built around the King Soopers strike
The relationship between Cordova and some of her union-represented staffers started souring in January 2022, toward the end of the nine-day King Soopers strike, according to Laws’ report and the UFCW employees interviewed by The Sun.
The union’s staffers had been putting in long hours on the picket line in the cold. They commented about their exhaustion and frustration with how the strike was going during a Zoom call with local and national union leaders.
Cordova wasn’t present during the Zoom gathering, but she called a staff meeting on Feb. 7, 2023, where she said she was embarrassed by what her employees had said on the call. She also suggested they were well compensated and could leave their jobs if they were unhappy, according to Laws’ report.
“Regardless of the precise words Cordova uttered,” Laws wrote, “the employees at the meeting were essentially presented with two choices: Either suck it up and deal with the adverse working conditions or work elsewhere.”
“My whole life I would have never allowed anybody to speak to me like that,” Blea told The Sun, “but it was just normal there with her.”
The King Soopers strike and the Feb. 7 meeting marked a turning point for Zack Lewis, a UFCW 7 worker who also alleges he was fired for speaking out against Cordova and her leadership team.
The Daily Sun-Up podcast | More episodes
“I can tell you that when I first started working for Kim Cordova, I highly respected her,” Lewis said in an interview with The Sun. “But as we got to the strike, and the pressure started to mount, there was a change.”
Lewis, who began working at the union in 2020 and was fired in December 2022, said planning for the strike was minimal and when it began, the picketing was disorganized. There were problems getting striking workers paid out of the union’s strike fund.
“It was a nightmare,” he told The Sun.
Among Laws’ other findings, UFCW 7 violated federal labor rules by:
- Requiring employees to return their work equipment because they might strike and also by requiring that they check in and check out their equipment, like computers and keys, each day
- Disparaging or denigrating the UFCW 7 workers’ union, the Federation of Agents & International Representatives Union, or FAIR. Laws found UFCW leadership also violated federal labor rules by falsely telling employees that during a bargaining session FAIR told Cordova to discipline and fire staff.
- Failing to continue the grievance procedure in the FAIR collective-bargaining agreements after they expired
- Failing and refusing to bargain in good faith, “including by insisting as a condition of reaching a successor collective-bargaining agreement that FAIR consent to a nonmandatory bargaining proposal”
Judge orders corrective action
As part of her report, Laws ordered UFCW to stop its unfair labor practices and required the union to take actions to prevent further violations, including bargaining with FAIR before making any changes in wages and/or work hours.
The judge also required UCFW to post a notice at the union’s Wheat Ridge office explaining that it had violated federal labor law and listing all of the violations.
But in the wake of the dust-up, a wave of the union’s employees, many of them longtime staffers, have left or were fired.
Blea said the reason he was given for his termination was that he didn’t follow up with a client. Meanwhile, Lewis said he was told he was fired for failing to turn in a doctor’s note about a leave of absence caused by emergency back surgery.
Both men argue their firings were unfair and unwarranted.
“I loved what I did,” Blea said. “I loved that job, absolutely. You get paid to help people.”
Lewis said he just wants Cordova to lead by example.
“I would like her to practice what she preaches,” Wilson said. “She makes a living calling out the CEOs of these companies, but she uses the same tactics.”
Cordova has been the president of UFCW 7 since 2010, after longtime president Ernie Duran Jr. was voted out of the position. According to UFCW filings, Cordova is paid more than $200,000 annually.
Cordova is up for reelection in the fall. Each term as the union’s president lasts three years.
Brea, who now works for King Soopers, said he plans to run against her.