The strike against King Soopers by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 drags on, and it requires miraculous powers of revision to see it as some heroic stand for fundamental American rights rather than a slick political maneuver.

Ostensibly, the strike is about breakdowns in negotiations over a new contract agreement. To hear the union tell it, conditions in King Soopers stores in Denver call to mind Dickensian work-houses and debtor’s prisons, and the company’s approach to the negotiations was to offer nothing beyond allowing workers an extra ounce of stale bread and limiting floggings to 12 lashes per shift.

The reality, needless to say, is considerably different. Despite the inflationary and COVID-related pressures the company is facing, King Soopers nevertheless went to the bargaining table in good faith, willing to work out a fair deal that both sides could live with. In their final offer, King Soopers proposed raising its minimum STARTING wage to $16 an hour – an inflationary rate that is almost $4 an hour more than the state’s minimum wage – and offering its unionized employees pay increases of up to an additional $4.50 per hour.

They didn’t stop there. The company also proposed strengthening their sick leave policy – including allowing workers to begin accumulating and using sick leave starting on the day they are hired, doubling the amount that can be accrued in a year and more than doubling the accrual rate. This is on top of the significant amount of money the company has spent to make sure that their employees do not have to spend a dime more on their health care premiums in the few years. As a matter of fact, King Soopers employees have not had to pay a red cent more in their weekly health care contributions in the last decade, despite the gestating cost of health care; meaning that the exploitative Dickensian robber-barons of King Soopers have been shouldering the costs for their workers.

So it becomes clear that King Soopers has negotiated in good faith, and offered the UFCW 7 an offer that is more than fair… and yet UFCW 7 head Kim Cordova refused to consider it, refused even to take it before her members and let them vote on it, instead calling for a strike which is now into its second week. Why?

In any reasonable economic circles, a strike is a manifestation of failure. The idea in collective bargaining is that both sides should stand to lose something substantive in a strike, giving the negotiating teams on both sides a pretty strong incentive to come to an agreement and avoid a strike with all of its collateral damages. King Soopers will undoubtedly suffer financially from the strike; but so too will others, directly and indirectly, including delivery drivers, suppliers, contractors, advertisers and even the workers who are stuck languishing on strike pay. And of course, there are the customers, some of whom may rely on things like prescription medicine from a local King Soopers pharmacy. All of these stakeholders will be stuck paying the higher prices that are the only logical outcome from this mess. So, why strike?

Well, consider who will NOT be hurt. Ms. Cordova, for instance, is not giving up her more than $200,000 per-year salary while her members sacrifice their paychecks for her bidding. But she also stands to benefit from a strike. You see, Ms. Cordova is gunning for the presidency of the national UFCW, and is reading the organized labor tea leaves, whose arrangement tells her that having a strike or two under her belt will be helpful. Recall the election last year to replace James Hoffa, Jr. as President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Hoffa’s hand-picked successor was Steve Vairma, a practical man who understood the nuances of labor law and negotiation. He was defeated 115,573 to 57,983 by the more aggressive Sean O’Brien, who painted him as being weak because he viewed striking as a last resort.

This explains why Cordova refused to let her members vote on King Soopers offer, why she spent almost $20,000 of her members dues money on Broncos season tickets and more than $150,000 on a D.C.-based PR firm to write the strike efforts press releases. I wrote not long ago that in a labor market like this, economic laws of capitalism result in employers paying workers more, absent external influences. Add to those influences a union leader who views striking as a persona political benefit.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.