than 15% of the American grocery market, second only to Walmart. Kroger argues that it needs such massive scale in order to compete with Walmart and Amazon—a strange claim, since Kroger's profitsWhy do companies find this sort of mega-merger so attractive? It allows them to squeeze suppliers for lower prices, and, on the flip side, it gives them greater pricing power over consumers.
Then there is the labor angle. These grocery companies have an enormous number of employees who are unionized with the United Food and Commercial Workers —the merger, in fact, could create thesingle private sector union employer in the country, even bigger than the Teamsters unit at UPS.
This merger needs approval from the Biden administration's Federal Trade Commission. That means this is a political issue, and opens a door for organized labor—particularly the UFCW—to have an extraordinarily large say, given the fact that this administration actually listens to unions more than any other in living memory.
And here is where we come to my initial point about how union leaders see their mission. In theory, the UFCW could reach an agreement with Kroger that, for example, ensured the company would be neutral as UFCW went about organizing more of its workers. It could be a way to deliver hundreds of thousands of new members into the UFCW's ranks.
The UFCW is huge, and it has many fine people working for it, and many inspirational members. But, generally speaking, it is a weak union compared to what the Teamsters have built at UPS. Grocery workers