Friday, March 5, 2021
On February 25, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied a motion for preliminary injunction brought by the California Grocers Association (CGA) against the City of Long Beach. In
California Grocers Association v. City of Long Beach, CGA asked the court to stop the city from enforcing its Premium Pay for Grocery Workers Ordinance, one of the many “hero pay” or “hazard pay” ordinances enacted by California localities in the past several weeks.
Long Beach passed its ordinance on January 19, 2021. The ordinance requires that large grocery stores (with at least 300 employees nationwide and 15 employees per store in Long Beach) in the city provide each grocery worker with premium pay of an additional $4.00 per hour for each hour worked for a minimum of 120 days. The next day, CGA filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the city from enforcing the ordinance. The CGA argued that the National Labor Relations A
Grocery workers at a Food 4 Less and a Ralphs store in Long Beach are angry at Kroger Co. for closing the locations after the city passed a "hero pay" ordinance.