What's News This Week: Top 13 Stories.

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Walmart Memo Orders Stores to Improve Groceries

 

The memo, marked “highly sensitive,” tells Walmart marketing managers to make sure that the company’s 4,965 United States stores discount aging meat and baked goods to maximize the chance that those items will sell before their expiration dates. The memo — leaked for public use by a Walmart manager unhappy about under-staffing — also tells stores to be sure to “rotate” dairy products and eggs, which means removing expired items and adding new stock at the bottom and back of display cases.

 

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Historic First Ever Sit-In Strike at Walmart Results in Two Dozen Arrests

The sit-in was live-streamed on blackfridayprotests.org. Take action and participate in the Black Friday protests that the workers are planning to hold on 28 November.

WHAT'S NEWS THIS WEEK   1. Whole Foods Workers Threaten Action if Store Conditions Don't Change Workers at a Whole Foods Market in San Francisco’s South of Market  neighborhood are demanding higher wages and the right to collective bargaining without being reprimanded by management. Specific demands include a $5 wage increase, better working conditions, a comprehensive health plan with affordable premiums and deductibles, and no retaliation for forming a union. Whole Foods — a company that has long preached a philosophy of corporate benevolence — is the second-largest non-union food retailer in the country.     2. Obama Plan May Allow Millions of Immigrants to Live & Work in U.S. President Obama will ignore angry protests from Republicans and announce as soon as next week a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration enforcement system that will protect up to five million unauthorized immigrants from the threat of deportation and provide many of them with work permits, according to administration officials who have direct knowledge of the plan.

3. Ahold Sales Up in Q3   3a. Stop & Shop Partners with AARP Stop & Shop has partnered with AARP to provide free supermarket store tours for Long Island, N.Y., seniors.

4. Key Food Takes Urban Market to Queens The second new concept store makes its Queens debut.

5. McDonald's Gears Up to Fight NLRB on Franchise Ruling McDonald’s Corp. and other franchise companies are preparing a major public campaign to fight a recent National Labor Relations Board determination that could hold them responsible for the labor practices of their franchisees.

6. How Clueless & Out of Touch is Congress on Raising the Minimum Wage   States are raising their own minimum wage higher than Congress' suggestion.

7. Here's 5 Ways U.S. Destroyed Manufacturing Sad, but true.

8. President Obama Speaks Out on Net-Neutrality If you haven't heard of Net-Neutrality, well, you should read about it now.

9. Postal Workers Plan Day of Action to Protest Service Cuts The nation’s four postal unions are mobilizing a National Day of Action on Nov. 14, to send a powerful message to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe and the United States Postal Service Board of Governor’s: Stop Delaying America’s Mail.

11. Strippers win $10.9 million in NYC Wage Theft Case Exotic dancers at a midtown Manhattan strip club were awarded nearly $10.9 million by a U.S. judge who found they were employees unfairly classified by the club as independent contractors.     12. Federal Contractors Say Thanks, but $13 isn't Enough, Obama. For the first time in history, federal contract workers at the U.S. Capitol building walked off the job Thursday, fighting for a $15 minimum wage, better benefits and the right to unionize. They joined workers from the Pentagon, the Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo and other federal contract workers in the nation’s capital.   13. New NBA Players Union President, Female & Legal Wizard She told Pablo S. Torre of ESPN the Magazine, "Let's call it what it is. [Without the players,] [t]here. Would. Be. No. Money. Thirty more owners can come in, and nothing will change. These guys [the players] go? The game will change. So let's stop pretending."         Editorial of the Week:   An Open Letter to Americans: You Americans Have No Idea How Good You Have it with Obama. This one hurts, a Canadian writes an open letter to Americans giving us a reality check of all the progress President Obama has made since taking over for George W. Bush.       Photo of the week via #WalmartStrikers: