The Washington Post reports that a proposed new Wegmans supermarket in Maryland’s Prince George’s County – which was scheduled to open sometime next year- is facing some opposition from a man who says that he is concerned that the infrastructure is not equal to the shopping center that was to be anchored by Wegmans.
As the Post notes, “Residents of Prince George's have been anticipating the supermarket. Economic development officials and other businesses are banking on the market leading a wave of other upscale retail stores into the county.”
But the Post also reports that infrastructure may not be the prime motivator behind the legal roadblocks being created by Anthony Perez, who in fact is a member of the board of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400. This, according to the Post, “raises the possibility of organized labor aiming to thwart the development to keep Wegmans -- a nonunion grocer -- out of the area. The UFCW chapter represents 40,000 workers in the food-processing and retail businesses in the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. In other markets, the union has waged campaigns against such nonunion grocery chains as Food Lion and Publix when they opened stores.”
As the Post notes, “Residents of Prince George's have been anticipating the supermarket. Economic development officials and other businesses are banking on the market leading a wave of other upscale retail stores into the county.”
But the Post also reports that infrastructure may not be the prime motivator behind the legal roadblocks being created by Anthony Perez, who in fact is a member of the board of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400. This, according to the Post, “raises the possibility of organized labor aiming to thwart the development to keep Wegmans -- a nonunion grocer -- out of the area. The UFCW chapter represents 40,000 workers in the food-processing and retail businesses in the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. In other markets, the union has waged campaigns against such nonunion grocery chains as Food Lion and Publix when they opened stores.”
- KC's View:
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I just hate it when union organizers talk about infrastructure but are only using it as a subterfuge to fight non-union companies.
Memo to the UFCW: Cut the crap. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
There isn’t a community in America that wouldn’t be lucky to have a Wegmans…and I suspect that given a choice between the union and Wegmans, most people would choose the latter.
