Workers Challenge Mega Grocery Merger
A federal judge is deciding whether or not to approve the in U.S. history. The Kroger and Albertsons chains say they want to merge in order to better compete with non-unionized grocery retailers such as Walmart. The Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission has to stop the $25 billion deal, it would not help lower food prices and could hurt worker rights and wages.
Grace Garcia, a cashier at Vons in Glendale, California, with over three decades in the grocery industry, as well as a member of UFCW Local 770, spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about why workers like her are opposing the merger.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Ƶ Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 of the same name.
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