Stella D'oro plans to close doors in October, Tuesday Morning Read

Last week, a federal judge ordered Stella D'oro to reinstate 134 workers after a protracted 10-month strike. This week, the company invited the workers back. It also announced that it would close the factory in October.

NY Times: After Inviting workers back, cookie factory plans to shut down.

New York: Welfare checks to increase for the first time in 19-years.

"I work at Con Ed, but need food stamps to get by….And with a monthly electricity bill of some $200. I feel that Con Ed is taking back whatever little I get paid."

-Fernando Cruz, a maintenance worker who cleans the Manhattan offices of Con-Ed, in Friday's Daily News

The Connecticut Laborers' Council plans to picket three work sites in Torrington, Bristol and Ellington to protest a Plainville-based construction firm's use of nonunion workers, including a future Stop & Shop site.

Don McGeorge, who as president and chief operating officer of Kroger Co. was influential in developing many of the retailer’s strategies, including its private brands and centralized operations, is retiring after 32 years with the company.

About 1,200 Macy's workers in Washington 'OK'd' a contract.

Remember Mark Kaiser? Former executive at Ahold’s U.S. Foodservice division, who was sentenced to seven years in prison back in 2007 for his role as “organizer and leader” of a scheme that led Ahold to overstate its profits by $800 million. Kaiser was convicted of fraud in the case, in which he was found to have directed the creation of fake invoices to artificially inflate vendor rebates. Well, he is now seeking a re-trial.

Trader Joe's is receiving some criticism over sustainable fish.

Local 342 wins NLRB case against kosher meat packers.

Two more supermarkets to pay over $1 million dollars in back wages.

Two supermarkets in Brooklyn have agreed to pay back wages to employees totaling $1.125 million after a state investigation found they did not pay some workers at all and paid others less than minimum wage. This past February Local 1500 and the Building Blocks project helped workers at Amish Market, Zeytinia, Zeytinz and Zeytuna receive over $1 million dollars in back wages. NY1 covered the story here. This is becoming too much of a common practice throughout New York City, the Building Blocks Project along with Local 1500 is working on the New York State's Dept. of Labor's Wage Watchers campaign

Wal-Mart

REGINA, Saskatchewan — A judge here has voided union certification at a Wal-Mart store where workers organized under labor laws that were since altered, reports Thursday said.

Chicago- Chicago Alderman still yearns for Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart backs drive to force companies to pay for health insurance.

Politics

Mayor Bloomberg has imposed an immediate city hiring freeze, citing “gridlock in the State Senate” that has held up votes on budget measures.

That includes a class of 250 police recruits who were slated to start at the academy tomorrow.

NY Times looks at 5 years down the road: The Stalemate in Albany, Five Years On.

Supermarket News.

King Kullen calls union demands "Unrealistic"

Workers at seven Long Island King Kullen stores walked off the job Sunday in four-hour shifts before returning to work as negotiations stalled between the supermarket chain's management and union leaders.

One hundred workers who make Bakers Pride ovens, broilers and ranges are on strike in their quest for a new contract to replace one that was due to expire two months ago. The workers, members of Local 888 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, want 4 percent raises, said Eric Cunningham, a union representative who led about 30 workers yesterday on a picket line in front of the company's sprawling brick building on Pine Street. The company has offered raises of 2.5 percent, he said.

Supermarket News covered the UFCW endorsement of Obama.

Workers in the meat and seafood departments of six King Kullen supermarkets on Staten Island will walk off the job Sunday night unless a contract deal is reached between their union and the chain's management. A union representative said today that negotiations between United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 342 and King Kullen Grocery Inc. are not going well and a strike is "pretty likely" at all 51 King Kullen stores on Staten Island, Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island.

About 17,000 home-based child care providers will join the Civil Service Employees Association as a result of a lopsided pro-union vote, state officials said Friday.Officials with the State Employment Relations Board said that 3,723 child care providers had voted to unionize, while 161 had voted against. National union leaders applauded the move. “Today, 17,000 day care workers in New York added their voice to the national cry for change,” said John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “They said the best way for working families to bring change is to form unions.”