How 8000 Members Rejected Their Kroger Contract — Twice
After being shut out of contract negotiations, members of UFCW Local 700 in Indiana voted down a concessionary tentative agreement with Kroger twice in a row. Andrea Reynolds, a DSD receiver in Kokomo, IN, shares how they did it in Essential Voice.
Members of O.U.R. Local 700 rally for a fair Kroger contract in August 2025.
Every summer, we as grocery store workers fight the heat, holidays, and the daily grind. But this summer, the rank and file members of UFCW Local 700 fought for a better contract. I'm a 20+ year member. I always yearned for a union that was active and engaged, but it felt like the members weren't ready. With 8,000 workers, the Indianapolis Kroger contract is the biggest contract in UFCW Local 700.
After keeping members in the dark about contract negotiations, our local union leadership dropped a subpar, concessionary contract in our laps and told us we had four days to vote Yes. The wage increases didn’t keep up with inflation, there was no contract language to address the understaffing crisis in our stores, and other changes to the length of the contract and our disciplinary language made it obvious this contract was sending us backwards.
My coworkers and I were angry, but we weren’t sure what to do. My sister, who also works at Kroger in Indiana, invited me to a Zoom meeting hosted by EW4D. I thought I would appease her to get her off my back. But at the meeting, I was shocked to see how many other members felt the same way about our contract and our union.
Members of Local 700 wanted a better contract, but lacked the foundation to win one. We never had meetings to discuss negotiations. We only get one-way surveys every contract cycle that seem to go nowhere.
I was skeptical at first, but we started to hold regular Zoom meetings and talked to other members across the local. First, we educated and organized members by comparing pay, health insurance, and staffing language with contracts in other parts of the country. We started small with phone banking campaigns, petitions, mapping our stores and our local, and then we got to work organizing our coworkers to get united for a fair contract. We started a Facebook page where members could get info and updates.
After the first proposal was voted down by 74%, we knew it was time to ramp up outreach to members. I started talking to any and everyone in my store and any sister stores I could. It's true when they say those personal conversations reach more members. And sure enough, in July we voted down a second proposal. Even Kroger’s bribe of a $200 Kroger gift card in the second proposal wasn't enough to convince the membership to vote Yes.
We never thought it was possible to come together to vote a second proposal down.
The highlight of this journey was our rally! The rally at an Indianapolis store was an experience I never thought I would see in my own union. Local 700 has never held a rally for its members. In fact, just a few days before we held our own rally, our local union leadership spoke at an AFL-CIO event in Indianapolis that they intentionally kept from the membership.
Our rally, on the other hand, was completely member driven. We delegated tasks to members, like contacting local news media, writing and practicing speeches, and holding up big signs showing the gap between Kroger’s wage offer and the cost of living in Indiana. I helped emcee the rally, leading chants in between speakers. UFCW members, non-UFCW union leaders, community supporters, and news cameras all showed up!
I couldn't believe we pulled it off. I was so proud to be a union member again, something I hadn't been able to say in a long time.
That's when we finally got everyone's attention. Just a few days after our rally was all over the local news, Local 700’s leadership held their first ever "town hall" to answer questions & talk about the contract, after we had been calling on them to hold an open meeting for weeks.
It was the first time they ever held a meeting like this, but they still didn’t allow members to ask their own questions or speak their minds.
We finally received our third contract proposal in August. As with each proposal, we made small gains. From the first to the third tentative agreement, we moved our contract from four years back to three years, we won more in wage increases for top rate and for utility clerks, we won spousal coverage one year earlier, and we won staffing language for the first time ever, which we can continue to build on in the future.
Though we won some improvements we were proud of, we still felt this third tentative agreement wasn’t enough. The local saturated the bargaining unit with UFCW International Representatives from across the country, all telling members to vote Yes. We knew we had a tough job. The third proposal passed by just 56%. It wasn't the contract everyone deserved. But at least it was significantly better than the first contract they tried to force on the membership.
And most importantly, in just eleven weeks, we got the members involved and started the movement to transform our union from the bottom up!
Andrea Reynolds
Kokomo, Ind.
O.U.R. Local 700
Organized. United. Ready.