Wal-Mart forced to pull advertisment with lies, Local 1776 and 7 contract updates

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Wal-Mart Stores has pulled a national advertisement that says consumers can save $700 a year shopping at its stores after H-E-B challenged the ad and filed its objections with an industry group.

More on Wal-Mart's checkered advertising campaigns.

Ahold yesterday made an offer to repurchase notes to reduce net interest expense and debt. The Amsterdam-based retail conglomerate’s subsidiary, Ahold Finance USA, is proposing to buy back any and all of the outstanding $690 million 8.25 percent guaranteed senior notes due in July 2010. The buyback will be paid for out of existing cash balances.

Meanwhile the S&P upgraded their stock.

Safeway workers across Colorado have overwhelmingly rejected the grocery chain's counter-offer and re-authorized a strike first approved on May 8.

Workers for Acme Markets Inc. poured into the Spectrum last night to reject a controversial contract, paving the way for a potential July 10 work stoppage at 41 Southeastern Pennsylvania stores

Meanwhile Coloardo Safeway workers have rejected their contract proposal as well.

UFCW Local 1776 and Acme are 'nearing a showdown' as the Philadelphia Inquirer says.

Over 25,000 letters sent to the city councils of Los Angeles and New York urging elected officials to not let Wal-Mart build stores in their communities.

A Saskatchewan judge has overturned the union certification of a Walmart in Weyburn. CKOM is reporting that Justice Peter Foley said in his ruling that workers should be allowed to vote on whether they want a union or not.

Walgreens will reintroduce beer and wine into their stores.

Tuesday Morning One Liners...

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Spartan Stores, a grocery supplier to independent grocers and operator of 99 retail stores throughout Michigan, offering GM workers and UAW workers who lost their jobs discounts on gasoline and groceries.

Rite-Aid workers and union supporters will rally in Times Square on Thursday before a shareholders meeting...workers in Lancaster have been struggling over one year to negotiate their first union contract.

A national Ad group has told Wal-Mart Stores yesterday that it should stop running TV ads claiming customers can save $700 a year by shopping its stores. This is not the first time Wal-Mart has been told to stop making claims like these in advertisements.

Wal-Mart has also named a new diversity officer.

Wal-Mart is also having yet another 'sales tax mishap', overcharging customers, this time in Missouri. If you remember this was previously an issue in Connecticut.

Lee Scott, the former chief executive officer of Wal-Mart Stores, called on attendees at the CIES World Food Business Summit here on Friday to join the Global Social Compliance Program to help ensure that suppliers are adhering to local wage and environmental regulations.

A&P store in Midland Park, N.J. next Saturday morning will have a Jonas Brothers day.

Price Chopper has announced they will analyze their labor costs.

Hyde Park Stop & Shop update: voting waits on traffic light location.

Another study has confirmed, lack of nearby supermarkets takes years off life.

As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, adding a supermarket to a neighborhood could, collectively, mean a gain of up to 15 years of life for those suffering from diabetes; 13 years for those with liver disease; 58 years for people with diet-related cancers; and 112 years for people with cardiovascular disease.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn unveiled an agreement with the Bloomberg administration last Thursday on a trifecta of measures geared toward making it easier for small businesses in the city to launch and prosper.

The city of Philadelphia has rejected a measure that would ban plastic bags.

USA Today: For immigrants, living the dream is getting tougher.

Local 1500 to Bloomberg: Fix up your supermarket plan, King Soopers members reject contract proposal, Thursday One-Liners...

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End of a retailing era, Virgin Megastore shuts its doors in NYC.

Local 1500 tells Mayor Bloomberg to beef up his supermarket plan.

A Food Basics store will open at the site of a former A&P in Fairview, N.J., next week.

A&P is also debuting a new private label for kids.

Why Wal-Mart needs the Employee Free Choice Act.

UFCW Local 1776 members at Acme supermarkets will vote on a contract next week.

Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in the L.A. area, terminated more than 200 employees after an IRS audit finds that they had provided 'invalid or fraudulent' Social Security numbers, UFCW 770 calls it a 'desktop raid'.

Here's more on the firings of 254 employees.

UFCW 7 members at King Soopers have rejected the contract offer...On the contract offer:

Roxanne Heeney, a pharmacy technician at the King Soopers store at 6030 Stetson Hills Blvd. and an employee for more than 20 years, said the offer "really bums me out, that they are trying to decrease our benefits and not give us any wage increase. I can't make ends meet now. I want to avoid a strike, but if we have to strike, we will. I would like to see something that would help us maintain our retirement fund so we won't have to work until we're 95."

King Soopers in Colorado, has also filed a suit accusing union representatives of disrupting business and intimidating workers by sending groups of union representatives into stores to talk to workers.

They're set to meet today in court, as King Soopers tries to block the UFCW representatives from speaking to their members on the sales floor.

The Progressive Grocer has an indepth story on King Soopers allegations of "Union Hooliganism"

They're also reporting 'Fresh & Easy' to open four stores in July.

The UFT replaces Randy Weingarten.

A horrific accident took the lives of three workers and injured 41 others in an explosion and roof collapse at the ConAgra Foods Inc. facility in Garner, North Carolina, on June 9, 2009. The (UFCW) Local 204 represents 900 workers in that facility.

Politics

Howard Dean has endorsed both Brad Lander and Josh Skaller, only problem, they're running against each other.

Another poll confirms Patterson's unpopularity.

Senator Monnserratte is now turning to back the Dems.

NYSUT endorses Gillibrand.

The Food Safety Bill continues to advance in the house.

As the Senate reels, Espada says he gets 2 votes

Sen. Pedro Espada, the dissident Bronx Democrat in charge of the deadlocked Senate, is insisting that he can count himself twice to get a quorum to start passing bills. At the same time, he is contending that an investigation into his finances by prosecutors is payback for cozying with Republicans to take over the Senate. Meanwhile, allegations were flying that former Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith of Queens directed state money to a school attended by, in Espada's words, Smith's "out-of-wedlock child."

Prayer Vigil for Food Justice

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Inter-Faith Leaders to Join Forces with United Food and Commercial Workers 1500 to Call on Elected Officials to End Child Hunger and Support a Just and

What: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist faith leaders will join representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1500, We Act for Environmental Justice, The Majora Carter Group, and the NYC Coalition Against Hunger on the steps of City Hall to demand changes to food policy at the city and federal level.

When: Thursday, June 18th 9am

Who: Lisa Sharon Harper, New York Faith & Justice

Charles Calloway, We Act for Environmental Justice
Allen Strouse, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500
Alexandra Yannias, Interfaith Voices Against Hunger/Feed the Solution
James Subudhi, We ACT for Environmental Justice
Tanya Fields, The Majora Group
Rabbi Jeremy Kalmonofsky, Ansche Chesed
Anindita Chatterjee Bhaumik, Faith Connect
Jaspreet Singh, United Sikhs
Nurah Amatullah, Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development

Where: New York City Hall, Manhattan

Visuals: Faith leaders and non-profit leaders joining hands on City Hall steps.

Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, co-chaired by Lisa Sharon Harper (New York Faith & Justice) and Charles Calloway (We ACT for Environmental Justice), is a diverse collaboration between faith leaders committed to making deep impact on issues of environmental justice in New York City through coordinated collective action on issues such as food justice, climate justice, and energy conservation.


United Food and Commercial Workers Join Forces with Inter-Faith Leaders to Call for a Just and Sustainable Food System for NYC

Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist faith leaders locked hands with representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1500, We Act for Environmental Justice, and the NYC Coalition Against Hunger on the steps of City Hall to demand changes to food policy at the city and federal level. Their “demands” were in the form of prayers and policy recommendations.

On the City level, faith leaders urged Mayor Bloomberg to include food policy in PlaNYC, an omission that disproportionately affects low-income and minority residents who are more likely to be unable to afford and access healthy food in their communities.

On the federal level, faith leaders called on Congressional leaders to support a strong Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, which Congress will consider this year.

Lisa Sharon Harper, co-chair of Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, the vigil’s sponsor, explained, “Low income black and brown families are sitting in the back of the bus when it comes to food in New York City. They pay up to twice as much for less nutritional value and they are twice as likely to suffer from diabetes as higher income New Yorkers.”

“As faith leaders,” Harper said, “we have a moral mandate to speak up when the very lives of the vulnerable are threatened by the systems that govern us.”

Said Alexandra Yannias, coordinator of Interfaith Voices Against Hunger/Feed the Solution, an initiative of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, and facilitator of the Faith Leaders’ food justice working group: “As more children suffer from hunger, obesity, and diabetes in our communities, we must improve federal legislation for child nutrition to create a healthier generation. We call on Congress to support a strong Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act by increasing the per meal reimbursement for school meals to allow the programs to purchase healthier foods and by making the programs universal in low-income neighborhoods.”

Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, co-chaired by Harper and Charles Calloway of We ACT for Environmental Justice, is a diverse collaboration between faith leaders committed to making deep impact on issues of environmental justice in New York City through coordinated collective action on issues such as food justice, climate justice, and energy conservation.

At the group’s May 2009 breakfast gathering representatives from the Office of Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer, and the Department of Health highlighted some promising policy recommendations one of which was the creation of a “food shed” for the city.

A food shed would create a 200-mile zone around New York City that could provide more fresh produce at a cheaper rate by taking advantage of local farms and distributors. Though the city would not expect to obtain 100 percent of its food from the food shed, it would seek to provide as much food as possible from the food shed to streamline the city’s food system.

Policy decisions must integrate a just and sustainable food system into the political structure of New York City. Currently, fast food restaurants are subsidized by the city to locate at 125th street or above. Meanwhile, supermarkets are closing in that area and pharmacies are opening in their place to meet the high demands for diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease medication.

“The city’s FRESH program offers economic incentives for healthy supermarkets to locate in currently underserved areas,” said Harper. “Incentives are what we need but they must come in tandem with standards developed by the people of the community.”

“Job standards are especially important, since underserved areas have the highest rates of poverty and unemployment,” added Allen Strouse, Food Policy Associate for United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1500. “Incentives need to guarantee that employers provide good jobs so that programs like FRESH truly benefit working-class New Yorkers. We need supermarkets that bring good food, good jobs, and good
health.”

UFCW, which serves the interests of 22,000 members, will participate in the vigil.

The day of justice continued that evening at New York Faith and Justice’s event, An Offering of Letters for Food Justice. Hosted by St. Mary’s Episcopal Church at 521 W. 126th St at 7 pm, participants shared stories of food injustice and its effects in our city and our schools. They wrote letters to Mayor Bloomberg and congressional representatives calling for food to be adopted as part of PlanNYC and for the passage of the Child Reauthorization Act.

Said Yannias, “We cannot continue to stand-by as low-income communities in New York City suffer from hunger and diet-related diseases. We must take action now by calling on our representatives on the federal and city levels to improve how we feed our children and our communities.”

Lisa Sharon Harper, who is also executive director of New York Faith & Justice, reflected, “For those who have much, food seems like an insignificant side issue. For those who have little, food is the difference between life and death, health and debt.”

“We must redistribute the health in New York City,” Harper added, “and we must do it now.”


Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice is guided by the cooperative leadership of New York Faith & Justice, We Act for Environmental Justice, the Interfaith Center of New York, New York Theological Seminary, Hazon, Interfaith Voices Against Hunger, NY Divinity School, Riverside Church of New York City, and St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

Gourmet Garage will open in about a month, New Farmers Market on Long Island, UFCW Local 7 Contract updates...

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Workers in King Soopers, Denver voted on the company's latest contract proposal on Tuesday, in a letter to members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, union President Ernest Duran said King Soopers’ proposal “slashes pensions, fails to preserve health care benefits, maintains the unfair two-tier system and penalizes the corporation’s workers.”

A Farmers / Flea Market will be opening every Saturday at SUNY Old Westbury on Long Island.

Woodhaven Lanes, well what was formerly Woodhaven Lanes, may soon turn into retail space in Glendale Queens.

The New York Times looks at how the recession has hit Jamaica Queens.

Smith’s Food & Drug yesterday came to a tentative agreement on a new contract with United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1564 of Albuquerque, N.M
Supermarket News has more.

Albertsons will close another store in Florida.

Gourmet Garage will open up at the former Balducci's in "about a month"

UFCW 1776 has until today to vote on Acme Markets' "last, best and final contract offer"

Politics

A New York Times/Cornell/NY1 poll shows seven in ten New Yorkers don’t want to elect David Paterson as governor in 2010.

Carolyn Maloney is persistent on running against Kristin Gillibrand.