South-side Piggly Wiggly sold to franchisee

Piggly Wiggly’s flagship store on Sheboygan’s south side will be sold to a franchisee in early September, leaving the 83 union workers there to reapply for their jobs, the store’s parent company said Thursday.

The move is part of an ongoing strategy by the Sheboygan-based grocer to shift to franchise ownership.

Following the sale, just 13 of the 102 Piggly Wiggly Midwest stores in Wisconsin and Illinois will be corporate owned.

“It allows us to focus on the wholesale side of the business and concentrate on the overall branding, advertising and store design,” said Gary Suokko, Piggly Wiggly’s chief operating officer.

Piggly Wiggly Midwest will retain ownership of the building and surrounding Washington Square shopping center, along with several outlot sites nearby.

New owners Mark and Robin Tietz, who purchased the north-side Piggly Wiggly in 2009, will take ownership of the store on Sept. 11.

“It will be seamless to the customer,” Suokko said. “There’s always benefits to this strategy. The owners are in the store working and are in the community, and at the headquarters level, we can concentrate on the overall program.”

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The sale leaves the local union’s future in doubt. Workers there are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1473, which has had numerous run-ins with the company over the years.

Union President John Eiden couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The 60,000-square-foot south-side store, which is located near the company’s headquarters, became the centerpiece of an ugly fight between the company and union in 2012, after the union filed more than 120 unfair labor practice charges against the grocer for alleged infractions at various unionized Piggly Wiggly locations.

The dispute at one point saw the company announce plans to close the south-side store and lay off all its employees.

Suokko said that whether the union remains in place is in the new owners' hands.

Following the 2009 sale of the company's north-side location, the union said that if more than half its employees were rehired, the new owners would have to recognize the union and negotiate a new contract. That store no longer has union representation.

Suokko said the company still has two unionized stores in Racine and one in Menasha.

Reach USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Reporter Josh Lintereur at 920-453-5147, jlintereur@gannett.com or on Twitter @joshlintereur.