Irvine officials are looking to expand upon state law and further protect grocery store workers’ jobs in the event of a merger or if a store gets new owners.
A city council majority agreed during their meeting last night to bring back an ordinance that would require grocers to keep on the same employees for at least 90 days if ownership changes hands.
Officials voted 5-2 to bring back the ordinance for consideration at their next meeting on Sept. 22. Councilmembers Mike Carroll and James Mai voted no.
The ordinance will need two approval votes from the council at separate meetings before it can go into effect 30 days later.
It was proposed by Councilmember Kathleen Treseder, who’s up for reelection this year.
State law already outlines similar requirements for grocery stores with over 15,000 square feet of retail space, but the proposed change in Irvine would extend the retention requirements to stores with less than 15,000 square feet of retail space and more than 300 employees nationwide.
“If a grocery store is sold, has a new owner, is transferred or otherwise, there are restrictions on whether the new owners can essentially fire all the workers,” Treseder said at last night’s meeting. “However, current trends in the development of retail grocery are tending toward smaller stores with less retail space and more dining space.”
[Read: Irvine Looks to Protect Grocery Worker Jobs]
Treseder said the proposed changes for grocery store workers are meant “to ensure the stabilization of this vital workforce and to preserve health and safety standards” in the city.
Councilmember Betty Martinez Franco spoke to attendees at the council meeting in Spanish before offering some comments in English. She’s also up for reelection this year.
“I think Irvine needs to lead in this in protecting the workers. Just like we lead in innovation, we need to lead in protecting human rights and workers’ rights,” Martinez Franco said.
Carroll said he wasn’t supporting the ordinance because it’s not an issue for city leaders, adding that it seems to target specific grocers like Mother’s Market.
“The way I look at it, my job is to focus on parks, police, public works and property land use. That’s what we primarily do,” he said at the meeting. “Food safety is a state law issue.”
He also said the ordinance does nothing to attract new stores or keep grocery costs down.
Mai said private businesses have a right to make their own hiring decisions.
“While I absolutely understand and respect the intent of this proposal, I worry that it becomes counterproductive by adding another mandate for businesses considering investing or taking over an underperforming location,” he said.
The action comes just after 15 employees were suspended from a Mother’s Market store in Costa Mesa during calls to unionize workers. There’s also a different Mother’s Market store in Irvine.
Jose Perez — president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324, which represents grocery workers in Orange County — spoke at the meeting in support of additional protections for grocery store workers, calling out that grocery employees were essential frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Despite their continued commitment and service to our communities, we’ve seen many of these workers become collateral damage in the wake of store closures and corporate mergers,” Perez said.
“It is important to understand that the grocery worker retention ordinance already exists for the vast majority of grocery store workers in the state,” he continued. “The efforts by the Irvine City Council would close a loophole in the state … It will help make sure that all the major grocery stores play by the same rules.”
It also comes as leaders from the Orange County Hunger Alliance say hunger is continuing to skyrocket in the county as tens of thousands of residents lose their food assistance benefits.
A new report by Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks, found over 387,000 people or roughly 12% of Orange County residents experienced food insecurity in 2024 — increasing from over 267,000 food insecure residents in 2021 or 8.4% of the population.
[Read: Orange County’s Food Insecurity Continues Growing as Food Stamp Cuts Loom]
Some business representatives like the California Grocers Association aren’t supporting the change.
In a phone interview ahead of the meeting, Nate Rose — spokesperson for the association — said Irvine’s proposed ordinance doesn’t help keep grocery store doors open and doesn’t keep food costs affordable.
“It really in no way helps expand food access for communities, and at the end of the day, food access and affordability are the top concerns throughout all of California,” he said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “We have the highest grocery prices in the country.”
“If we want to be serious about affordability, we need to be, on the policy side, talking about how to make it easier to operate stores, how to make it easier to open more locations so that there’s more competition.”
Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
