Kroger Shoppers, Workers Mobilize To Keep Galax, VA, Store Open
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
When Kroger
announced on January 17 that it planned to
close its legacy store in Galax,
VA., workers and customers swiftly mobilized to
keep the store open. The Galax
Kroger has been a community fixture since 1931
in the small town seven miles
from the North Carolina border. Upset at the
prospect of not being able to buy
affordable, healthy food locally and losing the
high quality customer service
they’ve been accustomed to for decades,
customers joined with UFCW Local 400
members to mobilize the community to contact
company executives and sign
petitions. Within hours of
the announcement, Melissa Turman, a customer
and restaurant owner who lives two
miles from the store, launched a “Save Kroger in Galax,
Virginia” Facebook page that garnered
3,200 “likes” in less than a week (the
population of Galax is just over 7,000).
“With Kroger in Galax, everyone feels like
family,” said Turman. “This family
has given Kroger 80 years of loyalty and this
is how they pay us back?” Local
400 member and shop steward Kristy Key echoed
these sentiments. “If Kroger
decides to close,” she said, “it would be
like our community center closing. It
warms my heart that the customers gathered
together on their own—no one told
them to do it—to start the Facebook page and
the online and hard copy petitions
as well as making countless phone calls and
emails to Kroger’s headquarters to
keep the doors open. That should tell Kroger
something.” Based on a longer report on the
UFCW
400 website. photo: (l-r): Matthew Jones –
Meat Clerk, 3 years of service;
Bryan Gravley – Customer Service Mgr., 24
yrs; Randall Lowe – Meat Mgr.; David
Williams – Receiver, 47 yrs.; Kristy Key –
Assistant Customer Service Mgr.,16
yrs. Photo courtesy Kristy
Key.