How do Fred Meyer employees and labor unions view Trump and his policies?
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Executive summary
Fred Meyer’s rank-and-file and the unions that represent them treat Donald Trump and his policies largely as adversarial to organized labor and worker protections, a view expressed by labor bodies and amplified during local disputes with Fred Meyer/Kroger; at the same time, individual employees’ views are mixed and some have pursued anti-union legal remedies, underscoring fractures within the workforce [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Labor’s public posture: Trump as part of a broader anti‑worker narrative
National and state labor leaders frame the 2024 contest and the Trump record as a “fundamental choice” for workers, with AFL‑CIO leadership calling Trump an “unhinged serial union buster” and urging support for pro‑labor candidates — language that situates Trump as hostile to union goals and aligns unions with political opposition to his agenda [1].
2. Local union activism ties corporate fights to politics, implicitly linking to Trump‑era trends
UFCW Local 555 and allied Oregon unions steered the narrative of the Fred Meyer disputes toward broader anti‑corporate and pro‑worker policy themes — from calling for boycotts after unfair labor practice strikes to demanding protections for food access — reinforcing the sense that companies like Kroger/Fred Meyer are part of the very set of forces unions see as emboldened by recent national policy trends [2] [5] [6].
3. Strikes and boycotts: practical labor strategy that doubles as political messaging
When roughly 4,500 Fred Meyer workers struck and the union urged community boycotts, the action served both bargaining aims and a political narrative that corporate conduct (including alleged price‑gouging) harms workers and consumers — a framing easily folded into critiques of administrations perceived to favor big business over labor [7] [8] [2].
4. Worker sentiment is not monolithic: evidence of dissent and legal pushback
Reporting and filings show not all Fred Meyer employees align with the union’s political framing: several workers have filed federal charges against UFCW Local 555 with the support of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, alleging union misconduct and asserting individual rights to resign, which highlights intra‑workforce disagreement about unions and, by extension, about political alignment with labor’s critique of figures like Trump [3].
5. Everyday grievances feed skepticism toward both employer and union, muddling views on Trump
Anonymous employee feedback on platforms such as Glassdoor documents complaints that contracts erode benefits over time and describe management moves that disadvantage long‑tenured workers, demonstrating that many employees’ primary concerns are immediate workplace conditions and contract language — priorities that can translate into either support for pro‑labor political stances or disillusionment with unions that fail to protect members, complicating any broad claim about uniform anti‑Trump sentiment among staff [4].
6. Competing agendas and how they shape public statements
Union communications emphasize solidarity, boycotts, and political pressure; these stances advance collective bargaining leverage and broader labor policy goals, which may also serve institutional union interests in mobilization and relevance [2] [5]. Conversely, right‑to‑work groups backing dissenting employees have an explicit agenda to reduce union power, and Fred Meyer/Kroger statements defending their practices underscore business interests in countering union narratives — all of which color how “views of Trump” are expressed and deployed in public [3] [9].
Conclusion: a layered picture — union hostility, employee heterogeneity
Taken together, union leadership and much of organized labor view Trump and his policies as antagonistic to labor power and worker protections, a perspective that shaped union strategy and rhetoric around the Fred Meyer disputes [1] [2]. Yet the Fred Meyer workforce does not present a single political stance: many employees rally with unions over wages and benefits, while others pursue legal challenges or voice workplace frustrations that complicate a simple pro‑ or anti‑Trump label [7] [3] [4].