Free Republic

ATLANTA, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Home Depot Inc's (HD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) top executive said on Thursday that the retailer opposes the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would let unions be certified once a majority of employees signed union authorization cards, rather than holding a vote. "We feel very strongly that our associates ought to have the right to a secret ballot," Frank Blake, the retailer's chairman and chief executive, told Reuters after attending an event in Atlanta. U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama, who won election to the nation's highest office on Tuesday, was an original co-sponsor of...

he calls a bunch of Home Depots in Delaware and asks if they've ever seen Biden hysterical!

It turns out that Katie's Restaurant closed down fifteen years ago. Talk radio host Curtis Sliwa of WABC dug this information up. He also got puzzled reactions from Wilmington Home Depots asking if anyone had ever sighted Biden.

Some big retailers are promoting compact fluorescent light bulbs as a way to save energy. But improper disposal of the bulbs creates a hazard, because they contain small amounts of mercury. Recycling them is about to get easier. Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs. “We kept hearing from the community that there was a little bit of concern about mercury in the C.F.L.’s,” said Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s...

Shopper sues Home Depot, claims he was cemented to store toilet JUNE 13--A St. Louis man claims that he was injured last year after being glued to a toilet seat in a Home Depot and is suing the retail giant for negligence. Haywood Rosales, 31, charges that during an August 2007 visit to a Home Depot in Florissant, Missouri he used a store bathroom and came into contact with a toilet seat "covered with adhesive," according to his Circuit Court lawsuit. Rosales's lawyers told TSG that their client did not notice the adhesive before sitting down and that he used...

The rising value of the Chinese yuan, higher pay for Chinese workers and $136-a-barrel oil may mean more factory jobs in North America, the Home Depot chief executive Frank Blake said. The world's largest home-improvement chain is looking for factories in the United States, Mexico and Canada to build some products that are getting too expensive to make in China, Blake said in an interview in New York. The Atlanta-based Home Depot imports about 13 percent of the goods it sells, and most of that is made in China, said a spokeswoman. A shift in production from China back to...

A Home Depot store in Utah plans to celebrate Gay pride in the Store with decorations of Rainbows and employee Tee shirts announcing gay pride. Inside sources say that this is something that will be devastating to business as most of the customer base tends to be on the Right side of the issue as they are mostly religious people. I am actively involved in this business and i dont want to be a part of it bacuae this is contrary to my belief and would like advice from more experienced FReepers on how best to disrupt these outrageous plans...

How could job loss for 80 small-town residents be a "great story?"

So far, 2008 hasn't been a banner year for Home Depot. In January, the Atlanta-based home improvement retailer laid off 500 people from corporate headquarters. In February, it announced its first ever year over year sales decline. In April, it announced the net loss of 970 jobs from reorganizing its human resources staff. And today, it announced it is closing 15 stores, affecting 1,300 employees. Plus, the Home Depot is suspending the development of 50 stores. The 15 targeted stores are mostly in the Northeast and Midwest, from New Jersey to North Dakota. No Atlanta stores are scheduled to close....

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

A D.C. Council member's plans to place a day-laborer center in Northeast appear to be at a halt as officials struggle to find a property to house the site and community opposition to the center grows. “I don't know if there is ever going to be a final” resolution, said council member Harry Thomas Jr., Ward 5 Democrat, who proposed placing the center near a Brentwood shopping plaza to connect day laborers and others with jobs. “I would just say, 'Stay tuned.' ” As many as 200 mostly Hispanic day laborers congregate each day at the shopping plaza, which includes...

Bad news. As our folks were leaving, the fake indian showed for the first time in a year, gathered 12 guys with him, and said 'lets get them', and they jumped D, E, and old man N. D was hit with a rock and had his head split open. Some of our folks had already left, so there were only 4 left. Heather managed to stay in her car. I knew something was going to happen there today, but decided to put my car in the shop and blow that feeling off. Needless to say, this is one of the...

A plan to require large home-improvement stores to set aside space for day laborers moved ahead Friday as the Los Angeles City Council asked for a final ordinance. "This is a citywide problem and rather than try to go back and retroactively fix the issue, we should deal with the stores before they open," Councilman Bernard Parks said. Under the measure, all home-improvement stores in Los Angeles with more than 100,000 square feet will be required to set aside space for day laborers that includes plumbing facilities. Parks said that while he appreciates the economic development that comes with the...

Community and business leaders met last night with officials from the Metropolitan Police Department to discuss recent crime exacerbated by a throng of day laborers who gather at a Northeast shopping center looking for work. "When you have a group of people who are not from your neighborhood, and a large group of men gathering, people become worried and become fearful," said Raymond Chandler, an advisory neighborhood commissioner who scheduled the meeting at Isle of Patmos Baptist Church at 12th Street and Rhode Island Avenue. "These people are coming into our community wreaking chaos and confusion." As many as 200...

South Elgin police are investigating a possible hate crime after a racial slur was painted on a work counter and a noose was found hanging from an exit at a Home Depot store under construction, authorities said today.

Portland, Ore. (AP) -- Kitty and Shawn Sonnenschein didn't think they had cheap friends. The couple were married last month at their Portland house. Because they were remodeling the kitchen, they requested gift cards from Home Depot instead of gifts. But when they looked in the basket they had set out by the guest book, they found only three Home Depot cards. Not wanting to offend their guests, the couple didn't say a word. "It's been extremely uncomfortable," Kitty Sonnenschein, 28, told The Oregonian newspaper. "You don't want to call somebody and ask them what they got you." But over...

Dustin Chester was job hunting Tuesday — a day after The Home Depot fired him and the general manager for thwarting a thief from running away with a pocket full of stolen cash. Last week, the 24-year-old department manager confronted a man who was standing by a soda machine in front of the Murfreesboro store off Old Fort Parkway holding a crowbar and a wad of cash. When the suspect started running, Chester said his instincts took over. "When he ran, I ran after him," he said. Chester caught the thief and restrained him in the parking lot until police...

Home Depot was forced to drop the sale price of its commercial supply business by nearly $2 billion yesterday, according to people involved in the negotiations, one of the first big buyouts to be renegotiated as a result of recent tightening of the credit markets and problems in the housing market. The renegotiated deal, which cut the sale price roughly 18 percent, to $8.5 billion, could lead to reconsideration of some other large buyouts that are still pending and are worth nearly $400 billion collectively. Such turmoil is likely to leave the Wall Street banks that backed those deals stuck...

By picking a tough-minded outsider to head Chrysler, the struggling automaker's new owners have put company employees, suppliers and dealers on notice that things will be changing. Cerberus Capital Management's founder Stephen Feinberg closed the $7.4 billion deal to buy Chrysler on Friday and this weekend put his guy in place at the top, installing former Home Depot Inc (HD.N) head Robert Nardelli as the automaker's CEO. Nardelli's hiring comes at a critical time for the struggling U.S. automaker -- amid contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers union aimed at reducing hourly labor costs in areas such as health...