Mergers

Workers Caught Up In Warner Bros. Media Monopoly Battle

December 11, 2025 Chauncey K. Robinson, People's World. Strategize! California, Mergers, Monopoly, Warner Bros, Worker Rights

Hollywood, Calif.—Streaming media giant Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced on Dec. 5 that they had entered into a definitive agreement under which Netflix will acquire Warner Bros., including its film and television studios, HBO Max, and HBO. The deal, valued at $82.7 billion, may have the companies’ investors ready to celebrate, but several labor unions and elected officials are sounding the alarm that the acquisition may be bad business for workers and consumers alike. Over the course of several weeks, a bidding war broke out between major media studios Netflix, Paramount Skydance, and a number of other large media conglomerates over which company would acquire part or all of WBD.

Railroad Barons Launch An Astroturf Campaign For Their Mega-Merger

October 14, 2025 Brett Heinz, Revolving Door Project Newsletter. Educate! Astroturfing, Mergers, Railroads, Transportation

The power of railroad monopolies was one of most fraught political issues in America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rampant political corruption, fraud, violations of workers’ rights, inefficiencies, and inflated prices were an endemic feature of monopolistic control over our national transportation system. So bad was the rail companies’ behavior that the first ever regulatory agency in US history was created specifically to monitor their abuses. At the center of many of these controversies was Union Pacific (UP), a company whose actions played an important role in shaping early antitrust policy. Flash forward to today, and that same company is back at it again.

Why Railroad Workers Are Fighting The Proposed UP-NS Merger

September 16, 2025 Bill Moyer, Solutionary Rail. Educate! Mergers, Norfolk Southern, Railroads, Union Pacific, Worker Rights and Jobs

In the coming year or so, the Surface Transportation Board will determine whether to approve or block Union Pacific’s $85-billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern. This signals an attempt by Wall Street to squeeze yet more from this critical infrastructure in order to maximize returns for shareholders. In 2023, Surface Transportation Board (STB) member Robert Primus was the sole board member to vote against the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern to form Canadian Pacific Kansas City. President Trump’s recent illegal firing of board member Primus further weakens the STB and corrupts its adjudicatory mandate. The absence of a key critical voice from the Board raises the pressure on concerned workers, shippers, competing railroads, and the public to make their voices heard. Unless Primus is reinstated, the approval of this Wall Street railroad merger is a near done deal.

Railroad Worker Group Opposes Further Class One Rail Mergers

August 11, 2025 Railroad Workers United, Popular Resistance. Resist! Corporatism, Mergers, Railroads, Unions

The group Railroad Workers United (RWU) has issued a formal Resolution and statement opposing any and all mega-rail mergers such as the one under question in recent weeks between rail giants Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern. Should that merger move forward and be condoned by the U.S. government, RWU notes that the remaining two Class One railroads, BNSF and CSX, would in effect be forced to amalgamate as well, resulting in just four major rail corporations controlling not just the industry, but the infrastructure as well. Upwards of 90% of the rail traffic of North America will be controlled by these four corporations. According to RWU General Secretary Nick Wurst, “In no other counties in the world outside of North America do huge rail corporations not just run the trains, but own the tracks, yards, signals, shops and other infrastructure."

Grocery Workers Vs Goliath

April 28, 2025 Sarah Lazare, In These Times. Strategize! Albertsons, Grocery Workers, Krogers, Mergers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In early February, when temperatures in Denver plunged to seven degrees below zero and snow dusted the sidewalks, Martin Bonilla, bundled in two jackets and a neck warmer, walked a picket line 1,000 miles from his home of Fillmore, Calif. Bonilla works in the produce department at Vons and had flown to Colorado in the early morning after finishing an 11-and-a-half-hour shift. Over the next eight days, Bonilla picketed five of the 77 striking Kroger-owned King Soopers stores in Colorado, in support of 10,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7, putting in 16-hour shifts each day before going back to his hotel, exhausted.

UFCW Locals Block Kroger-Albertsons Mega-Merger

December 18, 2024 Lisa Xu, Labor Notes. Organize! Albertsons, Grocery Workers, Krogers, Mergers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

In a victory for labor—and in particular, for a coalition of United Food and Commercial Workers local unions—judges in Oregon and Washington state have separately ruled against the proposed mega-merger of Kroger and Albertsons, effectively blocking it and leading Albertsons to terminate the merger agreement. On December 10, a federal district court in Oregon upheld a preliminary injunction on the merger requested by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). On the same day, a court in Washington also ruled against the merger in a separate suit brought by the state’s attorney general.

Workers Would Pay The Price For This Mega Grocery Merger

March 14, 2024 Ann Larson, In These Times. Strategize! Albertsons, Grocery Stores, Krogers, Mergers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

As a former grocery store cashier, the recent news that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing to block a merger between supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons prompted a sigh of relief. My experience cashiering and bagging taught me just how it is critical to stop further concentration in the industry when just five companies already control over 60% of U.S. grocery sales. First proposed in 2022, the $24.6 billion deal would be the largest supermarket merger in history and would create the second largest grocery company in the United States (after Walmart).

How Private Equity Conquered America

March 2, 2024 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Resistance Report Finance and the Economy, Mergers, Private, Private Equity

Private equity firms are buying up the US economy and stripping it for parts. From healthcare to education, utilities, and more, massive firms like Blackstone and the Carlyle Group have acquired vast holdings across critical industries essential to the health and well-being of everyday people. Instead of seeking to make these ventures more profitable, private equity firms are more likely to orchestrate to bleed their assets for short-term gains—even if those assets are universities, hospitals, or nursing homes. Gretchen Morgenson, author of These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America, returns to The Chris Hedges Report.

How New Federal Antimerger Guidelines Can Restore Competition

July 10, 2022 Stacy Mitchell and Ron Knox, Institute For Local Self-Reliance. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Legal System, Mergers, Monopolies

When the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice announced plans to revise their merger guidelines earlier this year, it marked a dramatic shift from business as usual. Their announcements set the stage for a new era in antitrust regulation where mergers are not seen as inherent benefits to the market to be encouraged but rather as inherent threats of which to be skeptical. In “Rolling Back Corporate Concentration: How New Federal Antimerger Guidelines Can Restore Competition and Build Local Power,” the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) provides context illuminating why the departments’ new stance on merger activity is both enormously consequential for today’s economy and also entirely consistent with what Congress intended when creating antimerger law in the mid-20th century.

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