February 17, 2023 3:00 a.m.

On Thursday, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden joined Senate colleagues to push for accountability in a letter to Kroger, after the company’s shift to a new payroll system, allegedly left thousands of workers across the country short on their paychecks.

The letter from Wyden and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders claimed that “systematic and widespread errors” by Kroger resulted in many employees experiencing delays and missing wages in their paychecks in late 2022. The letter sent to Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen said, “Given your company’s record of anti-worker policies, and your ongoing attempt to push through a merger that would harm both consumers and workers, we are writing to request a full explanation of how your workers will be compensated for any lost or delayed wages, and how you will prevent future wage theft”.

A release said the senator’s letter follows four class-action lawsuits alleging that Kroger, the country’s second-largest grocery chain, engaged in widespread wage theft.

The letter said, “Even as your company was failing to address concerns about systematic wage theft, you have been pushing through a $24.6 billion merger with Albertsons Companies, Inc. that further threatens workers’ wages and jobs and hurts consumers by reducing competition among grocers”. The Senators claimed the merger would exacerbate corporate consolidation in the grocery sector, and likely result in the shuttering of some stores across the country and the firing of workers from both Kroger and Albertsons.

The text of the full letter is linked: https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2023.02.15%20Letter%20to%20Kroger%20FINAL.pdf