Worker Sues Kroger And Albertsons, Alleging Collusion Against Union
HuffPost
The lawsuit claims the supermarket giants reached a deal not to poach striking workers in order to reduce the union's negotiating leverage.
A grocery store worker filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Kroger and Albertsons in Colorado state court on Monday, accusing the two supermarket giants of colluding against striking employees to keep pay and benefits down.
Valarie Morgan, who works at a Kroger-owned King Soopers store, alleges the two competitors reached an illicit agreement not to poach employees or customers during a 2022 work stoppage. Doing so, she claims, gave Kroger an upper hand against its employees’ union during contract talks.
As a result, Morgan says, Kroger workers ended up with a worse deal than they should have.
“The anticompetitive agreement was successful,” she alleges. “It artificially reduced the union’s bargaining power during negotiations, while increasing the leverage of Kroger’s management.”
The suit alleges that this ultimately benefited Albertsons as well, since the terms of the Kroger deal would impact the contracts Albertsons would later negotiate with the same union.
