Proposed Kroger, Albertsons merger worries store workers
Gloria Romero has thought a lot about what a career change might look like.
Romero, 60, works at Market Street in Santa Fe — a store brand of United Supermarkets, a wholly owned subsidiary of Albertsons Companies — and has been part of the company for close to 32 years, starting as a courtesy clerk and now a cashier.
Her concerns center on a potential merger of two supermarket giants, one that would see Kroger acquire Albertsons in a deal valued at nearly $25 billion. If the deal comes to fruition, Romero said it could bring many unknowns — including a possible loss of jobs and less bargaining power for the union of which she’s a member.
“It’s kind of hard to start somewhere else when you’re 60 years old,” Romero said, adding she worries about being able to pay bills, such as her mortgage and recent repairs to her home’s roof, if she loses her job.
“It’s not like when you’re in your 20s or early 30s,” she added. “It’s different. That’s what’s scary . ... I need my insurance and I need to have good health benefits.”
The Federal Trade Commission, along with New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez and other attorneys general, filed a lawsuit in federal court last week to block the deal. If the merger goes through, the companies contend they can challenge other food retail giants such as Costco and Walmart — the latter of which owns about a quarter of the grocery market share in the country.
But the deal has upset workers like Romero, along with others in the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and has led to critics pointing out how it can eliminate choice and potentially elevate prices for consumers.
As part of the merger, the companies said last fall they would offload more than 400 Albertsons stores — including 12 in New Mexico — to C&S Wholesale Grocers, which owns the brand Piggly Wiggly. It isn’t clear which locations Albertsons and Kroger would sell. Albertsons through its subsidiary owns three stores in town, two Albertsons Market sites and Market
Street. Kroger operates two Smith’s grocery stores in Santa Fe and one in Taos.
“It’s scary because you’re wondering [if it is] going to be our store,” Romero said of her Market Street outlet. “So you don’t know until it happens, and then that’s when you have to start finding out what you’re going to do.”
UFCW Local 1564 President Greg Frazier, whose organization represents about 1,500 Albertsons and 2,500 Kroger workers in the state, said a merger between the two companies could mean less bargaining power for the union when it comes to negotiating contracts. In years past, he said, Kroger has been the company that hasn’t faithfully negotiated with its workers until Albertsons had made a deal with theirs on issues such as wages.
“That’s been a problem with Kroger,” said Frazier, adding a merger would weaken employees’ “ability to get a stronger agreement because we wouldn’t have the other company to bargain with.”
He said concerns about Kroger practices, such as cross-training employees in some departments as cashiers, plus worries about pension and health funds, trouble union members.
Anthony Carl Trujillo, a 54-yearold meat cutter at a Smith’s store in Santa Fe, said he’s skeptical of the companies’ comments on protecting union jobs and increasing wages if they merge.
As an example, he said, during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic Kroger promised hazard pay and routine testing. But he said it took away the $2 increase in hourly pay after just a few months and “long story short is they never did more testing.”
“It was all for naught,” said Trujillo,
who has worked for Kroger for 19 years. “I believe that’s how they made all this money to acquire Albertsons — they made record profits those years.”
The companies, in trying to push the merger through, have promised to be more competitive in pricing. A Kroger spokeswoman said the company’s “business model is to take costs out of the business and invest in lowering prices for customers” and that this would continue if it acquires Albertsons.
“The FTC’s decision makes it more likely that America’s consumers will see higher food prices and fewer grocery stores at a time when communities across the country are already facing high inflation and food deserts,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. “In fact, this decision only strengthens larger, nonunionized retailers like Walmart, Costco and Amazon by allowing them to further increase their overwhelming and growing dominance of the grocery industry.”
That’s a point the FTC and Torrez have disputed. It’s something both Romero and Trujillo dispute, too.
Less competition, Romero and Trujillo said, doesn’t equate to cheaper prices. And saying one thing is different than actually doing it.
“The prices are crazy as it is now,” Romero said. “If the merger goes through, there’s no guarantee that prices are going to go down — no guarantee at all.”