EXPOSED: Wage Theft at One of America’s Largest Employers

it was um the first pay period of October and I didn't get a paycheck nothing directly deposited into my bank and I thought that's that's odd Kroger employees say they've been paid late for weeks a payroll computer glitch they're telling us new payroll software is cheating them out of their hard-earned money when the money comes it doesn't come in full at the beginning it felt like this was maybe a one week one payroll issue and it was going to get corrected but now we're sitting here about six months later and we're still dealing with payroll issues if Bill is though you're working for a sweatshop and nobody cares they don't fix the problem they make it look like you're the problem I show up every day but yet they can't pay me I just felt really bad [Music] they'd make Kroger one of the biggest retailers in the United States and give them over 30 percent of the market share in the grocery industry we should be asking ourselves is this the type of company that has customers we want to be putting our trust in to be able to deliver food for our family to eat foreign was missing from October 6 until maybe a couple days before Christmas at the time when it happened Thanksgiving was right around the corner do you think they asked me about oh um it's Thanksgiving you need a turkey some stuffing a gallon of milk nope nothing it's particularly bad for Kroger workers to miss a paycheck because many of the workers are struggling to survive my income from Kroger is very important because I I am the breadwinner this thing there was a study published at the beginning of last year by the economic Roundtable and some of the things that came out in that study was 78 of Kroger workers were dealing with food insecurity when you put it into that perspective missing a paycheck or two is catastrophic it made me feel less than a mother because as a mother I'm supposed to be the one to provide you can't provide if it ain't nothing there to provide it was frustrating it was hard it's time for Kroger to wake up because if it ain't for us Little People Kroger can't make no money here's my apron and on the inside of the apron is the is the Kroger promise that we're supposed to memorize and it says because our purpose is to feed the human Spirit we promise everyone friendly and caring everything fresh uplifted in every way and improve every day oh no no I don't think they do I started to really look at my pay stub and I noticed that I usually get twenty dollars a week taken out as a as a health co-pay I noticed it was 40. so they had doubled it like for instance this week this is this week that I haven't put in there yet and I just I just checked it and sure enough they have they have double charged me again for the uh the health copay 40 instead of 20. the fact that I'm getting closer to retirement and I don't want to walk away from this job without being fully paid for for everything that I've done feels very um it just feels very violating and I and I feel it goes beyond um just the actual money they owe me I feel all the the stress I don't know it just caused a lot of stress in my life [Music] foreign it's really the the humanity that Kroger is lacking by not making this their number one priority we know that they have devoted a ton of resources to try and emerge with one of their biggest competitors Albertsons Kroger plans to buy competitor Albertsons for more than 24 billion dollars potentially creating a grocery Empire I can't even see when I started was its own family owned store and then Kroger took it over when it was mainly family run we would have things like a full Thanksgiving in our break room for Thanksgiving we would get gift cards for like a hundred dollars for Christmas and then over the years when Kroger bought it it just became less and less to the point where um now even to get a free uh quote free turkey we have to buy 25 worth of groceries are you just gonna keep being big big and just let everything else go underneath the cover because I have seen there for supergiant stores they get bigger and bigger and bigger and look good in the public eye but they forget about the stuff they actually got to deal with it's such a fundamental thing getting paid right we all deserve to get paid we all have a right to get paid for the work that we do I think that's an important discussion I think it's important to think about the company who's already really big getting bigger and how difficult it's going to be for them to run their company if they're already having trouble simply paying their workers I wish they would understand to be in our shoes that that we all work super super hard we all do our best every day for them the money is really not the issue it's you know it's it's the fact that the situation has happened and no one's really wanted to take care of it or take responsibility for it if you go to work you you are entitled to an honest patient and if you work and you don't get that paycheck your right has been violated it was a slap in the face coming from my company that I work for because they wasn't willing to help me when I helped them but now my question is with Kroger the table has flipped Kroger your employees need help what do you do

Channel: More Perfect Union

Views: 576,120

Keywords: more perfect union, politics

Id: BTqrGBsUhAg

Length: 7min 11sec (431 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023