Posted on 06/13/2012 10:49:10 AM PDT by Jean S
Sheboygan-based Piggly Wiggly Midwest notified the state on Tuesday it intends to close its south-side Sheboygan store by Sept. 1, the same store that had been the subject of a recent complaint by the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
The closing would result in the loss of 108 jobs at the store at 3124 South Business Drive, the notice to the state Department of Workforce Development said. Workers would not be offered bumping rights to other locations.
The letter was signed by Piggly Wiggly President Paul Butera, who addressed a copy to Sheboygan Mayor Terry Van Akkeren.
In May, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge ordered the company to restore full-time status and benefits to represented employees at the store whose hours were reduced without bargaining with their union.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1473 accused Piggly Wiggly Midwest of violating federal labor laws and not bargaining in good faith last September when it reduced hours for 19 of its represented employees shortly after the union’s labor deal expired.
Federal labor laws require employers to provide labor unions prior notice of such changes and an opportunity to bargain, which the company did not do, the union alleged.
The judge’s decision is subject to appeal.
Employees have been working without a labor contract since Sept. 7, 2011.
Following the judge’s ruling in May, a company attorney said the company was exploring all options related to the future of the south side Sheboygan store, including the viability of continued operations there.
Butera, Van Akkeren or union representatives could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.
Piggly Wiggly Midwest supplies more than 102 grocery stores in Wisconsin and northern Illinois, most of which are operated by independent franchisees.
The ultimate goal of the unions is a world where the CEO of Piggly Wiggly would be tossed into prison for doing this.
Business must never forget this.
I have seen with my own eyes union workers in Michigan vote to put an entire grocery chain out of business rather than accept wage concessions. And they acted as if they had won some sort of victory for “hanging tough”. There is no reasoning with this sort of mentality.
Man are you ever wide of the mark. I designed and printed the store circulars for Piggly Wiggly southeast regional headquarters in North Charleston, SC for a number of years.
Yes, I’ve “set foot” in quite a few.
Yes, they do sell chitlins in ten gallon tubs. Not something I’d associate with Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
No, the “hick” stereotype is in your own head.
They are quite different from mainstream grocery stores and have a very unique demographic.
So, bite me genius, lol.
We southerners are all very familiar with Piggly Wiggly. I too am surprised that the chain would be in Wisconsin. PWs do sell products that make money in their areas. Publix, etc., don’t tailor their inventories to local tastes so much. Winn Dixie does a little better at that but PW is the most sensitive to local tastes.
Indiana now is.... Don’t be suprised if WI follows suit in a few years... and the rest of the rust belt. Longer the economy remains slow, the more the rust belt will look at the places that jobs are going and realize working and jobs are more important than making sure union thugs get their blood money.
Union thugs really taught Pig Wig a lesson, that will really teach Pig Wig to mess with them. /S
Oh, and to hell with the union workers now out of a job, in the big picture they are expendable.
Well, those dues were well spent. /s
Northern unions had best learn their own lesson. It does not pay to push a southern business too hard, some will retaliate harshly.
The Union will probably insist, even thought the store is closed, that employees still be paid until they retire.
Piggly Wiggly was America’s first true self-service grocery store, and was founded at 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis Memphis, Tenn. in 1916 by Clarence Saunders.
In grocery stores of that time, shoppers presented their orders to clerks who gathered the goods from the store shelves.
Saunders noticed that this method resulted in wasted time and expense, so he came up with an unheard-of solution that would revolutionize the entire grocery industry: he developed a way for shoppers to serve themselves.
Piggly Wiggly was unlike any other grocery store of that time. There were shopping baskets, open shelves and no clerks to shop for the customer – all unheard of!
Piggly Wiggly Corporation issued franchises to hundreds of grocery retailers for the operation of Piggly Wiggly stores.
The stock was successfully traded on the New York Stock Exchange for some time, but through a series of stock transactions in the early 1920s, Saunders lost control of Piggly Wiggly and had no further association with the company.
Simple answer. Piggly Wiggly is a wholesaler; their stores are independently owned.
Publix and Winn-Dixie are both chains -- owning both the wholesale and retail functions.
Piggly Wiggly? Lol, is there really a place with such a name?
“Funny thing is, that Sheboygan is a big Democrat stronghold.”
Ahhhhh, The Snoids From Sheboygan strike again!
I one read in pre commie Russia, a Kulak was asked what would make him happy? He replied, that his neighbor’s ox would die.
Yeah, and they can always get a job at Thompson Industries.
Oh, wait.... /s
They're hugh!(I'm series)
I was walking through one one time and found a Walmart inside.
I never realized it either, until the movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
[ “Sheboygan is a big Democrat stronghold..”
####
Which definitely rules it completely out as being “the greatest little town in the world”. ]
Which made the libbies come swarm to it...
The libs love living the “good rural life” in a small town/city but they eventually get control of everything and destroy it.
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