Kroger Closing More Stores to Avoid Paying Workers Hazard Pay: Grocery giant Kroger, announced it plans to close more stores, this time in the Seattle area, after the city passed a $4-an-hour hazard pay mandate for grocery workers, drawing sharp rebukes from local officials and worker advocates, who point to the company’s record operating profits of more than $2.9 billion through the third quarter of 2020, while taking in an extra $1.2 billion in earnings compared to a year earlier during this deadly pandemic. Why, I tell ya, these essential workers really have some nerve! I mean, you’d think that these folks would be content with the occasional celebrity TV commercial singing their praises, or some colorful billboard saluting their efforts - but NO! I mean, do they actually believe that by putting their lives at risk by providing us with the necessities needed to maintain our daily lives in the middle of a deadly pandemic - that that entitles them to ask ...