Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Wednesday News @ Noon...New England Stop & Shop Contract Updates

New England Stop & Shop Contract 
New England UFCW members OK strike, though negotiations resumed yesterday.  The previous contract between Stop and Shop and the union's 43,000 southern New England members expired last Saturday.

The Hartford Courant has more (with video):
"The company gave us a new proposal," said Brian Petronella, president of UFCW Local 371 in Connecticut. "Basically the same concepts, which we don't like."

More @ Providence Journal & Boston.com & Supermarket News.

UFCW Local 1360 (NJ) members are voting on a contract with Acme today.

Tops Market plans to close four of the 79 recently acquired Penn Traffic stores.

More than 450 janitors who clean Safeway supermarkets in Northern California voted on Saturday to ratify a tentative collective bargaining agreement with four janitorial services contractors employed by Safeway.

Wakfern lays out plan for Shaw's: Of the Connecticut-based Shaw's Supermarkets it acquired, Wakefern Food announced plans to change the stores to PriceRite and ShopRite banners.  The deal is expected to close in late March or early April. Financial details were not disclosed.

Supervalu, last week said it would pull its Shaw’s banner out of Connecticut this spring, selling 11 locations to members of the Wakefern cooperative, another five stores to Stop & Shop and seeking buyers for its remaining two locations. Terms of the sales, which are expected to be finalized in late March, were not released.

The UFCW International Scholarship application is now available online.

Supermarket News looks at Whole Foods' 30th birthday.

And The Brooklyn Paper reports that Whole Foods has begun their clean up of their Gowanus site in Brooklyn, reports say Whole Foods is committed to building on the toxic controversial site.

Retail owner of Mystique Boutique now faces jail time and big monetary damages for allegedly underpaying workers' hourly wages and neglecting to pay overtime.  Employees at his stores were allegedly paid $5.25 an hour, which is $2 below minimum wage. In addition, for the last six years, employees have worked 66-hour work weeks and were not paid overtime. About 150 workers are owed the $1.5 million

Food Emporium stores last week debuted “A Taste of France,” an event providing New York metro-area shoppers with over 30 new and exclusive items of French delicacies, from popular gourmet brands such as Emmanuelle Baillard, Des Lis Chocolat, Barral, Apidis and more.

Food Politics
The Obama administration released details of its Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a $400 million-plus program that aims to bring grocery stores and other healthy food retailers to underserved urban and rural communities across the U.S. — so-called “food deserts.”...Meanwhile First Lady Michelle Obama visited the Fresh Grocer last Friday.

New Pittsburgh Law Guarantees Good Service Jobs at Developments
The country's first city-wide policy to create jobs that pay prevailing wages to service workers employed at city-subsidized developments became a law in Pittsburgh this week. The new law, which received a unanimous vote from City Council, requires developers receiving subsidies or other tax-incentives to pay the private-sector going rate to building service, food service, hotel and grocery workers.

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