Tues, Weds & Thursday Morning One-Liners: Aldi's breaking into NYC later than sooner...

Progressive Grocer: 16,000 NY Grocery Union Contracts set to Expire June 26
(you can find all media outlets who covered our release here)

At Co-op City, Trash Piles Up as Workers Go on Strike
Mountains of trash bags sprouted across Co-op City on Tuesday as residents and office workers rushed to perform basic maintenance tasks left undone by more than 500 unionized janitors, groundskeepers and parking attendants who went on strike on a contract dispute. 


UMass Memorial, Food Workers Union reach tentative contract
UMass Memorial Health Care and the union representing 1,300 of its workers have tentatively agreed to a two-year contract, avoiding the threat of a strike. 


Shaw's workers win support in Sommerville (MA)
Striking Shaw's workers took their fight through Somerville this week for support from labor and faith groups and a protest in Twin Cities. 


Oh the Aldi NYC thing again,

Supermarket News: Aldi to Open in NYC in 2011

The discounter has agreed to locate in the Rego Park II development in Queens, with the store scheduled to open in early 2011. Aldi had previously hoped to have arrived in New York as soon as last year, but plans for its initial store fell through, company officials said. The company is now seeking to hire staff for the Queens store. 

More @ Queens Central: Aldi Supermarket to open at Rego Center
The discount supermarket chain plans to open its first New York City store at the Rego Park ll shopping center at 65-35 Junction Blvd. in Queens, in 2011

Progressive Grocer also covered Aldi's NYC Plans.

Fowl is fair! Key Food's chicken relabeling is completely kosher.
A Brooklyn Heights Key Food that has been repeatedly accused of changing the "sell-by" date on meat is off the hook this week after the state revealed that the relabeling practice is completely legal. 


Workers at 3 MMJ Businesses in Oakland Unionize
California- Workers at three medical marijuana businesses in Oakland will announce Friday that they have unionized, another step in a concerted campaign aimed at bringing legitimacy to a once-hidden sector of the state's economy and boosting the marijuana-legalization initiative.


A crowed showed up last  week at Starrett City to protest Walmart's proposed first New York City superstore.


Unions v Wal-Mart
The Economist looks at an old unions stronghold battles the bigger retailer.

Undercitting its rivals: Wal-Mart slashing prices, restoring some basics.
Wal-Mart is counting on $1 ketchup bottles and sub-$4 cases of Coke to get its low-price mojo back.


Wal-Mart Expecting a Break Out?
Wal-Mart's price action is below this important level, which makes the stock difficult to buy, as there will certainly be resistance as it approaches its 200 day moving average.



Wal-Mart says recalled Miley Cyrus jewlery was not intended for children.
In a statement released by Wal-Mart, they announced that the line of Miley Cyrus jewelry was not intended for children. That comment has been met with skepticism by many mothers of tween girls who, for the past four years, have been sleeping, eating, breathing and buying everything Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus.

1.2 million un-employed workers will lose benefits since congress failed to act.

Politics, City & Everything in between...
Schneiderman for Espaillat, UFCW Local 1500 for Levine
UFCW Local 1500 continued its early endorsement streak by becoming the first labor union to endorse in the 31st SD race, throwing its weight behind District Leader Mark Levine.

Bronx May Land Fuel Alternative
The Bloomberg administration is pushing to build New York's first public alternative-fuel station to pump natural gas, ethanol and biodiesel.

Apparently Skinny People Shop at Whole Foods:
Researchers at the University of Washington further illustrate the link between poverty and obesity.


Co-op City workers in Bronx to Strike Over Proposed Wage Freeze
Building workers at Co-op City in the Bronx will strike this morning, seething over a four-year wage freeze proposed by management of the massive complex, union officials said Monday night. 


Race against time to keep MTA workers as layoffs loom
Hundreds of bus drivers and other transit workers could get a reprieve from impending layoffs if MTA and union officials can negotiate a deal-but the clock is ticking.

Bloomberg eliminates Teachers' raises, saves 4,400 jobs: Crains NY Business.

Tuesday Afternoon One LIners...

Wal-Mart to pay $27.6 million to settle California environmental case

Wal-Mart has agreed to pay $27.6 million to settle charges that it violated California environmental laws in its handling and disposal of hazardous materials, prosecutors involved in the case announced Monday in San Diego.

 

NY Daily News responds to Walmarts "cheap underwear" critics...

 

Bringing Down Wal-Mart

The woman who once dreamed of turning her life around through hard work and promotion into Wal-Mart corporate management is now the first “named plaintiff” in a sexual-bias class-action lawsuit against the mega-corporation. 

 

Shaw’s Rejects Union’s Offer to Settle Strike at Methuen Warehouse

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 791 announced today that Shaw’s Supermarkets rejected the union’s contract offer...

 

New Whole Foods Market to open in Schaumburg, IL

Air Products’ Hydrogen and Technology Fueling Wegmans’ Warehouse Operations [PA]

The produce at Wegmans Retail ServiceCenter (RSC) just got greener...

 

Concern over possible Flushing supermarket closure 

Hundreds of Flushing residents and their leaders are gearing up to fight the rumored closing of the Key Food supermarket at the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue and Bowne Street.

 

FreshDirect Rolls Out ‘Guaranteed Fresh’ Mark

Online grocer FreshDirect has debuted “Guaranteed Fresh” labels, which appear on all freshly made meals, meat, seafood, dairy and produce items. The designation clearly shows customers exactly how many days their food will remain fresh.

Stop & Shop Earns an A+ From Local Schools

Stop & Shop today announced it will distribute $1 million to local schools on behalf of Stop & Shop and its A+ Bonus Bucks shoppers. 

Whole Foods Market to Carry Converted Organics' Products

Total of 84 Stores With New Distribution Through North Atlantic and Mid-Atlantic Store Regions Whole Foods Expands Distribution of All-Natural Fertilizer by 66 Stores

 

 

Friday News at Noon: Shaw's Workers Need Your Support

From UFCW: Shaw's Workers Need Your Support!   Call Supervalu CEO Craig Herkert today at (952) 828-4000 - tell him that the 300 workers Supervalu’s subsidiary Shaw’s forced out on strike in Methuen, Mass. almost two months ago deserve to be treated fairly and that Supervalu should sit down at the bargaining table for a quick and fair resolution.

Stop and Shop gets key approvals for move to Hyde Park: [Poughkeepsie Journal]
Plans for Stop & Stop to move from its current store at Saint Andrews Road and Route 9 to the Hyde Park Mall can now begin in earnest...What will happen to the current Stop & Shop building is unclear....

Pro's Ranch Cuts 300 Workers in Immigration Probe: [Supermarket News]
The supermarket has released more than 300 employees at its six Phoenix-area stores — 20% of its workforce there — because they were found to be working without proper work authorization documentation.
The audits are part of a national process that began nationally last July and that have been conducted at more than 1,600 businesses across the U.S....

Related:

Reason.com: How Immigration Crackdowns Backfire.

RWDSU/UFCW Local 220 Authorizes Strike: [Press Release]

"We want to reach an agreement with Mott's," said RWDSU Representative Ron Duncan. "We stand ready to bargain but the company has taken this position that we should just shut up and accept whatever they are offering. It's really disgraceful that they want to take away from their employees at a time when the company is doing well." 
Over 300 members of Local 220 voted to authorize a strike if no agreement can be reached with Mott's for workers at the company's Williamson, NY facility. The vote, which was 250-5, gives authorization for the union to call a strike if the company continues to engage in unfair labor practices and refuses to bargain.





Elsewhere

Pepsi has rolled out Recycling Kiosks titled, "Dream Machine".

U.S. Organic Product Sales Reach $26.6B in 2009.

Racked looks inside the highly anticipated Chelsea Trader Joe's.

Victory for Canadian Farmworkers: Quebec's labour relations commission has cut out language in the province's labour code that had blocked seasonal farm workers from unionizing.

Downtown Express: Battery Park City may get a new Greenmarket...

Shaw's Workers Need Your Support!

Image via Wikipedia

• Call Supervalu CEO Craig Herkert today at (952) 828-4000

Tell him that workers in Methuen deserve to be treated fairly and that Supervalu should sit down at the bargaining table for a quick and fair resolution.

Shaw’s, a grocery chain owned by parent company Supervalu, is in a labor dispute with UFCW Local 791 members at its Perishable Distribution Center in Methuen, Massachusetts.

Since March 7, our 300 Shaw’s Methuen brothers and sisters have been forced into the streets on strike in order to protect their job security and their families’ affordable health care.

As the strike nears the two-month mark, Shaw’s has terminated the workers’ health benefits, ignoring the fact that many of these workers have young children with serious medical conditions, and some workers have spouses with serious issues such as risky advanced pregnancy. 

Further, the company is advertising for and hiring permanent striker replacements, something Supervalu has never done before.

There is no financial need for Shaw’s to make these callous demands and to subject our brothers and sisters, many of whom have decades of service to the company, to such inhuman treatment by leaving them in the streets without health coverage.

Our Methuen brothers and sisters need our support.  We will not let Shaw’s starve them into submission. We cannot let big employers think that they can bully UFCW members at the bargaining table — not in Massachusetts and not any town.

What you can do:

• Call Supervalu CEO Craig Herkert today at (952) 828-4000

Tell him that workers in Methuen deserve to be treated fairly and that Supervalu should sit down at the bargaining table for a quick and fair resolution.

• Write a letter to the company's leaders and let them know UFCW members stick together and how they are treating our brothers and sisters isn't right!

Monday News at Noon:

New England Stop & Shop Negotiations 
"We gave the company a proposal [Saturday] night, and the company came back and said it wasn't acceptable," Petronella said. "We want to see what they're offering as far as health insurance, wages and pension." -Brian Petronella, president of Local 371, in today's Hartford Courant.

The Hartford Courant published a memo from Stop and Shop to their employee's on their latest contract offer.

Stop and Shop also told the Courant that their latest offer is worth nearly $3,900 more per worker.


A Connecticut blog asks customers, "Would you cross the picket line?"  Many have used this phrase to the right-

Three of the 11 Shaw’s locations in Connecticut that are being sold to ShopRite operators will be owned by new members of Wakefern Food Corp., the cooperative said Friday.

The recently sold Penn Traffic stores saw sales decline on a weekly basis during January, according to a document filed with the bankruptcy court.

Walmart is aiming to cut Greenhouse emissions.

New York Governor David Patterson announced he will not run for re-election.

Senate hopeful Harold Ford Jr. is now bumping heads with Rep. Charles Rangel.

The Mayor of White Plains was arrested for assaulting his wife.

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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