When grocery chains Kroger and Albertsons — which together own more than 5,000 supermarkets across the country, including regional chains like King Soopers, Harris Teeter, Safeway, Mariano’s and Vons — first announced plans to merge in 2022, they promoted the idea by saying that in combining forces as the nation’s biggest and second biggest American grocery companies, they could lower prices, increase staff wages, protect union jobs and overall enhance customers’ shopping experiences.
Quickly, national union leadership and some liberal lawmakers, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, voiced major concerns about the merger, specifically in how it would affect the cost of groceries amid sustained inflation, the retention of union jobs and in how the resulting conglomerate would impact labor market competition.
