Courthouse News reports that an attorney for the California Grocers Association told a federal judge Tuesday a city of Long Beach ordinance providing a $4 an hour boost in hazard pay for grocery workers interferes with ongoing labor negotiations and should be blocked.

The Southern California city’s “Premium Pay for Grocery Workers Ordinance” provides the $4 per hour in premium pay for essential grocery workers who face higher risk during the Covid-19 pandemic.

CGA, which represents 6,000 grocery stores across California, filed a federal lawsuit against Long Beach on Jan. 21, claiming companies operate on thin profit margins and that some have already given their workers hazard pay bonuses.

In court papers, attorneys for CGA said the ordinance would result in grocery stores being more crowded and food prices more expensive for customers.

Upon filing its lawsuit in the Central District of California, CGA moved on an ex parte basis for a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the ordinance.

The next day, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee, who had been initially assigned to the case, denied CGA’s bid, ruling that the association failed to show how it would be irreparably harmed without emergency action by the court.

Gee also called the threat of city-sanctioned lawsuits against noncomplying grocery stores “speculative,” which the ruling said cannot be the basis for granting a TRO.

The case had since been transferred to U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II.

In court papers opposing an injunction, attorneys for Long Beach cited reports of grocery store corporations such as Kroger earning “eye-popping” profits during the pandemic while their frontline workers continue to face potential daily exposure to the novel coronavirus.

In a virtual federal court hearing Tuesday, CGA attorney William F. Tarantino told Wright a preliminary injunction should be granted because the ordinance’s alleged effect on collective bargaining is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act.

To support CGA’s preemption claims, Tarantino cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1976 ruling in Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm, which held local governments should not interfere in business that would otherwise be determined by “the free play of economic forces.”

Wright took the matter under submission and indicated a final ruling on the preliminary injunction would be issued soon.

Tuesday’s hearing came on the same day the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to approve an urgency ordinance requiring national grocery and drug stores chains in unincorporated LA County to pay workers an extra $5 an hour in “hero pay.”

The ordinance – which takes effect immediately and is enforceable for the next 120 days – cited frontline workers’ higher risk of contracting Covid-19 and their ongoing labor contributions as justification for the wage increase.