This week, a federal judge blocked the largest proposed grocery merger in history, between Albertson’s and Kroger. The merger, which would have fur

You Can't Rebrand a Class War - by Hamilton Nolan

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2024-12-13 19:00:07

This week, a federal judge blocked the largest proposed grocery merger in history, between Albertson’s and Kroger. The merger, which would have further consolidated the industry, raised prices for consumers, and hurt the power of workers, was strenuously opposed by unions. It was brought down by a lawsuit filed by Lina Khan, the Biden administration’s crusading FTC chair, who fought against the consolidation of corporate power harder than any of her predecessors. Khan said that it was “the first time the FTC has ever sought to block a merger not just because it’s gonna be bad for consumers, but also for workers.”

Also this week, the Trump administration announced the Khan would be fired and replaced with Andrew Ferguson, a Republican FTC commissioner. In Ferguson’s own pitch for the job, he wrote that his goal would be to “Reverse Lina Khan’s Anti-Business Agenda,” “Stop Lina Khan’s war on mergers,” “Protect Freedom of Speech and Fight Wokeness,” and “Fight back against the trans agenda.”

Also this week, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—two real pieces of shit— blocked an effort to reconfirm Lauren McFerran to the National Labor Relations Board, which would have ensured that the board had a Democratic majority for the first two years of Trump’s term, which would have served to hold off the Trump administration’s incoming efforts to roll back all of the progress on worker-friendly labor regulation that has been made over the past four years. Now, thanks to these two scumbags, Trump will not only replace NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abbruzzo—the single most pro-union official in the federal government—with an anti-union crusader; he will also be able to ensure that the entire agency is actively weaponized against union power. Because changing regulations takes time, those extra two years will be critical for the Republican effort to erase the Biden administration’s gains in making the government friendly to the task of union organizing, rather than hostile.