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UFCW locals across the country are gearing up for the sixth week of the Poor People’s Campaign, which will conclude its “40 Days of Moral Action” at a “Global Day of Solidarity” rally in Washington, D.C., on June 23.

“The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival,” was founded by Rev. Dr. William Barber II and Rev. Liz Theoharis, the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary, and hundreds of local and national grassroots groups. This campaign builds on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, who organized actions in 1968 to demand economic and human rights for poor Americans of all backgrounds.

UFCW locals helped to launch the campaign on May 14, and have been participating in events at state capitols across the country as part of the campaign’s “40 Days of Moral Action” for the purpose of challenging systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation, and the nation’s distorted morality. On June 11, UFCW locals turned out in full force for the fifth week of the campaign’s events in state capitols across the county, which revolved around the theme “Everybody’s Got the Right to Live: Jobs, Economy and Housing.”

For more information about the Poor People’s Campaign, contact the UFCW’s Civil Rights and Community Action Department at (202) 223-3111.

Hundreds of Kroger associates and supporters rallied outside of Kroger’s Mid-Atlantic Division headquarters in Roanoke, Virginia, on June 12 to protest a possible store closing in Norfolk and demand more information about the company’s recent acquisition of eight Farm Fresh stores in the Hampton Roads region.

In March, Kroger announced plans to renovate the Farm Fresh locations and reopen them as Kroger stores. However, one of the Farm Fresh stores is directly across the street from an existing Kroger store at 205 East Little Creek Road in Norfolk. The workers at the Kroger store, who are members of UFCW Local 400, have asked if they will be allowed to transfer to the new store across the street; however, Kroger has refused to give them straight answers.

At the rally, the workers delivered petitions signed by thousands of Kroger employees and customers in five shopping carts to Kroger’s Mid-Atlantic Division President Jerry Clontz, asking for Kroger officials to meet with them and let them know that they will have the opportunity to transfer to the new store across the street without losing the benefits they have earned.

“I think they know what is going to happen and we want an answer,” said Kroger florist Marjorie Mathena in an interview with WVTF, Virginia’s public radio station. “And our question is we all want to go in one store. We are one family. We have been there all this time, more than 20 years.”