Summer is officially here and with it comes fruit from California. I am enjoying this season with a variety of fresh fruits at retail and I hope you are as well. Next week I will be on vacation so you won’t be getting a newsletter. Hope you miss it!
FORLORN shop facing a dusty car park in one of the poorest parts of Phoenix, Arizona, is an inauspicious place to start a closely watched experiment in global retailing. Yet this is where Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket group, will seek to establish its beachhead in the world's richest grocery market.
Later this year Tesco will open at least 21 stores in this arid city and plenty more—it will not say how many—in Las Vegas, San Diego and Los Angeles. It plans to pepper some of America's fastest-growing states with Fresh & Easy local groceries at a rate of three a week. Tesco has identified as many as 100 sites to begin its £250m a year ($500m) campaign. Rumour has it that a new warehouse just east of Los Angeles could alone supply some 400 stores
Senate Republicans on Tuesday rejected a bill to make it easier to form unions, defeating a drive by newly empowered Democrats to shore up a shrinking constituency -- organized labor. On a vote of 51-48, Democratic backers fell short of the 60 votes needed to clear a procedural hurdle and move toward passing the legislation. The measure would have enabled employees to create a union simply by obtaining the signatures of most of their fellow workers rather winning a federally supervised election
Labor, which has seen union membership plunge in recent years, contends the elections are tilted to favor employers and often result in the unlawful firing of organizers and even threats to close plants. But traditionally pro-business Republicans blocked the bill, arguing it would violate workers' rights and undermine a hallmark of American democracy -- the secret ballot.
