Long Beach Ralphs, Food 4 Less stores to close over $4 ‘hero pay’ boost for grocery workers

[vraiblonde]

it looks bad, but business are in to make money, not be a welfare system.

I understand that but at some point there is a community responsibility that comes into play, unless you just want to be attacked for the greedy bastard you are and eventually run out of business anyway.

Of course, in many areas Kroger is the only game in town - you shop there or you don't shop. So it's not like these communities have any choice.

Anyway, this is one of those things that will never change. The AOCs and Bernie Sanders' can talktalk on Twitter about how they're for the workers and the poor, but if that were true they'd do something besides talk and blame Republicans. The truth is that they're whores for corporate money and will never EVER seriously buck that.

Which is fine - just the way it is. But I refuse to be brainwashed by the media into thinking something as ridiculous as Kroger being "forced out of business" by minimum wage hikes. Minimum wage hikes hurt the small Mom and Pops, not the megacorps with their obscenely rich CEOs.

 

[GURPS]

If referenced stores are already operating at or near a loss ...

This is the claim, the profits were already thin ... this just pushed costs over the top ... I'm am capitalist but better could be done

 

[GURPS]

I understand that but at some point there is a community responsibility that comes into play, unless you just want to be attacked for the greedy bastard you are and eventually run out of business anyway.

Agreed

 

[PeoplesElbow]

I use to work at a Kroger, a large store has over 100 employees. Many of those are part time "kids" as I was.

My best friend's dad was the manager of the store across town and we worked in the other Kroger in town. Once a year they would bus us to an off-site location to tell us how lucky we were they allowed us to be in a union and how evil Walmart and the newly opened Super K Mart were. I made 5.25 an hour for 15 hrs a week and the union took $5 a week initiation fee for the first six weeks and $20 a month normal dues. I didn't care for the union at all.

It was no secret that Kroger paid their managers significantly higher than other stores including the gigantic super K marts and Walmarts so someone brought this up and was smacked down by the corporate visitors telling them Kroger managers are responsible for more.

Anyway since my friend's dad was a store manager we knew how much he made, in 1994 a store manager made 200k.

Anyway just wanted to share my kroger knowledge.

 

[vraiblonde]

This is the claim, the profits were already thin .

They're liars. If that were true they wouldn't have been able to dole out those megamillion bonuses.

Maybe what they meant to say is "Profits were thin after we divvied up hundreds of millions among ourselves."

 

[phreddyp]

It never ceases to amaze me how many of the experts on this site actually have so little knowledge of how a successful business is actually run !

 

[Gilligan]

But I refuse to be brainwashed by the media into thinking something as ridiculous as Kroger being "forced out of business" by minimum wage hikes. Minimum wage hikes hurt the small Mom and Pops, not the megacorps with their obscenely rich CEOs.

Uh...no.

Supermarkets are often cited as among the types of businesses with the lowest profit margins. It's true. Grocery store profit margins typically range from 1 percent to 3 percent, depending on the items.

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html

 

[Bare-ya-cuda]

Take the old McKay’s on greatmills road that closed up a few years ago. Folks cried food desert for the poor and unfortunate living at that end of great mills road. I would sometimes stop on my home and that place was always trashed. I would observe people shopping not having any respect for the place or products in the store. McKay’s shopping carts could be found over along pegg road. The employees probably didn’t have any sense of pride. Community responsibility can only go so far. The community wants to keep a place around treat it as such. I am sure there were other reasons McKay’s closed but from my limited observations I wouldn’t have kept it going either.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

There are high margin items. For example I use to make crab spread at the store, I would grab some cream cheese, imitation crab meat, Worcester sauce, and mix it all together and sell it for about a 200% margin over the shelf price of the items.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Take the old McKay’s on greatmills road that closed up a few years ago. Folks cried food desert for the poor and unfortunate living at that end of great mills road. I would sometimes stop on my home and that place was always trashed. I would observe people shopping not having any respect for the place or products in the store. McKay’s shopping carts could be found over along pegg road. The employees probably didn’t have any sense of pride. Community responsibility can only go so far. The community wants to keep a place around treat it as such. I am sure there were other reasons McKay’s closed but from my limited observations I wouldn’t have kept it going either.

I was in there one day and a woman was letting her kids open up bags of bread, dump the bread on the floor and stomp on it.

 

[vraiblonde]

Uh...no.

Uh, yes. What Mom & Pop do you know who paid out $21million a year to one person?

Mom & Pop operate on margin; megacorps operate on volume. I thought everyone knew that. How do you think Walmart can have such low prices compared with small independent retailers and yet their CEO has an annual compensation of around $22million?

It surprises me that you got taken in by the disingenuous "1-3% profit" canard. What is 1% of $133B*? Because that was Kroger's sales for FY2020.




* Answer: it's $1.33 BILLION. Poor poor Kroger and their measly 1% profit .....

I'm going to chalk your comments up to a brain blip, or perhaps running around with too many Socialists and getting infected with the dumb.

 

[Gilligan]

I'm going to chalk your comments up to a brain blip,

..or all those courses in business econ. Or that...

It is the fiduciary obligation of every corporate "manager" to maximize profits and ROI. End of story. Individual crocery stores average around 18-20 million in annual sales. Take out operating overhead expenses, which are huge, and the costs of having 40 or more employees, and the profit on 18-20 mil ends up real small real quick. I will do nothing but applaud any business closing, that gets hit with arbitrary cost increases foisted on them by elected idiots with a BA in advanced basket weaving if they have any advanced education at all. No business anywhere has anything remotely resembling a "moral obligation" to stay open and operate. None.

 

[vraiblonde]

No business anywhere has anything remotely resembling a "moral obligation" to stay open and operate. None.

Nobody said they do. My point is purely from a PR standpoint, and scoffing at media manipulation trying to paint these behemoths as on the verge of begging for government cheese.

You all probably don't see Kroger commercials up there because why would you. But they focus on community and smiling employees and being the good guys in your neighborhood. Megabillionaires refusing those employees a $4/hour increase when they are showing at least a $1.3B profit doesn't exactly support the image they're trying to convey with their marketing.

Paying your employees a decent wage and not sneering at them from your Ivory Tower while you release the hounds goes a long way toward public goodwill, which in turn puts money in your pocket and keeps it there. But I understand that these megacorps could give a chit about the little people; they're all about their billionaire buddies and buying politicians to keep them that way. Just don't blow smoke up my ass. I'll shrug over the overlords exploiting the rabble - screw them, the rabble not only deserve to be exploited, they WANT to be exploited - but I won't have my intelligence insulted with these ridiculous assertions.

 

[phreddyp]

Nobody said they do. My point is purely from a PR standpoint, and scoffing at media manipulation trying to paint these behemoths as on the verge of begging for government cheese.

You all probably don't see Kroger commercials up there because why would you. But they focus on community and smiling employees and being the good guys in your neighborhood. Megabillionaires refusing those employees a $4/hour increase when they are showing at least a $1.3B profit doesn't exactly support the image they're trying to convey with their marketing.

Paying your employees a decent wage and not sneering at them from your Ivory Tower while you release the hounds goes a long way toward public goodwill, which in turn puts money in your pocket and keeps it there. But I understand that these megacorps could give a chit about the little people; they're all about their billionaire buddies and buying politicians to keep them that way. Just don't blow smoke up my ass. I'll shrug over the overlords exploiting the rabble - screw them, the rabble not only deserve to be exploited, they WANT to be exploited - but I won't have my intelligence insulted with these ridiculous assertions.

You sound just like a fifth member of the squad, AOC would be proud and envious of your narrow mind .

 

[vraiblonde]

You sound just like a fifth member of the squad, AOC would be proud and envious of your narrow mind .

Why do you say that and what do you think I was saying in that post? Because I thought I was clear, but obviously not clear, um, enough.

It's always fascinating to me when someone responds to one of my posts indicating that they "read" the exact opposite of what I wrote.

 

[phreddyp]

Why do you say that and what do you think I was saying in that post? Because I thought I was clear, but obviously not clear, um, enough.

Nobody said they do. My point is purely from a PR standpoint, and scoffing at media manipulation trying to paint these behemoths as on the verge of begging for government cheese.

You all probably don't see Kroger commercials up there because why would you. But they focus on community and smiling employees and being the good guys in your neighborhood. Megabillionaires refusing those employees a $4/hour increase when they are showing at least a $1.3B profit doesn't exactly support the image they're trying to convey with their marketing.

Paying your employees a decent wage and not sneering at them from your Ivory Tower while you release the hounds goes a long way toward public goodwill, which in turn puts money in your pocket and keeps it there. But I understand that these megacorps could give a chit about the little people; they're all about their billionaire buddies and buying politicians to keep them that way. Just don't blow smoke up my ass. I'll shrug over the overlords exploiting the rabble - screw them, the rabble not only deserve to be exploited, they WANT to be exploited - but I won't have my intelligence insulted with these ridiculous assertions.

Try reading your own post, then do some research on this company , focus on share buybacks , dividends and pension items . I eagerly await your response .

 

[vraiblonde]

Try reading your own post, then do some research on this company , focus on share buybacks , dividends and pension items . I eagerly await your response .

You spelled "Sorry, I misunderstood your post" wrong.

 

[phreddyp]

You spelled "Sorry, I misunderstood your post" wrong.

Not at all I'm merely giving you a chance to do some minor research and see where a major portion of your so proudly touted 1.3 billion of net profit went.

 

[vraiblonde]

Not at all I'm merely giving you a chance to do some minor research and see where a major portion of your so proudly touted 1.3 billion of net profit went.

Spell it out. And then you can tell me what it has to do with my point, which is that it looks bad and is poor PR when multimillionaire CEOs deny employees a $4/hr raise and PS go to the mat with it by closing stores.

 

[black dog]

Im just a dumbass welder, but if the government told me I had to add 40% to my labor cost. I would lock my doors and retire.