PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Local 555 Union is calling on customers to immediately boycott all Fred Meyer stores and departments in Oregon and SW Washington.
This boycott comes after more than 15 months of labor negotiations between the union and Fred Meyer.
“If Fred Meyer won’t listen to workers’ voices, perhaps they will listen to the sound of departments devoid of shoppers,” said Secretary-Treasurer of Local 555, Jeff Anderson.
The union stated they will continue this boycott until the store “ceases its unfair practices against its unionized employees and reaches reasonable contract settlements with the union.”
This is the first economic action taken by the union, as announced on Sept. 10.
Fred Meyer Stores issued the following statement in response to the union’s call for a boycott:
“At Fred Meyer, we are proud of our 97 years of putting people before profits, and we love our associates. Our purpose is to Feed the Human Spirit, and we know that recent allegations intended to make Fred Meyer look like an unfair or uncaring employer are an unfortunate misrepresentation of the reality for our great associates. The truth is that these actions don’t help the negotiation process at all and calls to boycott Fred Meyer hurt associates and their families, customers and communities, and ironically helps competitors, many of which are non-union.
Our goal is to reach a fair and balanced agreement that works well for our associates and our stores as soon as possible. Our next meetings with union negotiators are on 9/26 and 9/27. It is business as usual in our stores, and we want to thank our associates for serving our customers as they always have. They do a great job and we are very proud. At Fred Meyer, we are going to keep our focus where it should be, on our associates and taking care of our customers.“
The next update will come on Sept. 28 after the next round of bargaining, which is happening on Sept. 26 and 27.