Rep. Anthony Weiner (D – Brooklyn & Queens), Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, State Senator Carl Kruger, and Councilmembers Lew Fidler and Michael Nelson announced their plans to help bring a new supermarket to the area.
Weiner’s office has already written letters to Stop & Shop, White Rose, D’Agostino Supermarkets, Key Food, and Whole Foods in an attempt to find a suitable replacement for the community. With the closure of Pathmark, over 100 employees will lose their jobs and residents – including the neighborhood’s large senior population – will be forced to walk over 10 blocks to find another equivalent store to purchase their everyday groceries.
Pathmark will close on April 15, 2011
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Hey Bugg, do you proof read your posts before you post them? Try again, I have no idea what you are trying to say.
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Hey Bugg, get a clue. Pathmark and Waldbaum’s employees have had medical benefits and other benefits long before Obamacare. Stores have been opening and closing for a hundred years. Don’t use it to bash Obama. Walmart would never move in to such a small space. Don’t be so sure the people would want Walmart anyway. They want a store that treats it’s employees fairly and Walmart does not. They try to make their employees in to brain washed, cheerful zombies with their daily in store pep rally. They do this every morning before the store opens. They also teach their employees how to apply for food stamps and medicaid because their pay and medical coverage are below par. Walmart makes billions and billions in profits every year. Maybe under Obamacare they will finally have to use some of their profits to give every employee decent medical coverage.
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Ah,Walmarts own propaganda!
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Bugg, you’re starting to sound like a Rush Limbaugh wannabe repeating all the clichés one would hear on his radio station.
I have plenty experience with supermarkets and no of how they work and I can assure you that politicians, especially the local ones you mention have very little to do with the success or failure of a supermarket. It’s all about demographics. Look at the surrounding area and you’ll find, for the most part, an aging population that shops close to the purse, if you know what I mean. Frankly, I’m surprised Pathmark lasted as long as it did. For these local politicians to promise its constituents a new supermarket chain will open soon, is a fantasy. And for all those dreamers that think a Wal-Mart would open there, be careful what you wish for.
Wal-Mart is not just a supermarket. It’s also an electrical store, automotive store, electronic store, shoe store, hardware store, jewelry store, toy store, music store and the list goes on and on. Could anyone imagine what would happen to surrounding stores in the neighborhood? I’ve seen towns in the Midwest with a Target superstore on one end and a Wal-Mart on the other end and all the stores on it’s main streets were closed except for payday loan stores and dollar stores. Is that what we want for our neighborhood?
It happened in the Midwest and it will happen to East New York if our politicians sell us out and allow Wal-Mart to open.
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You don’t have to go all the way to the midwest to find that, Trainman. Upstate NY has plenty of towns just as you describe, completely ruined due to Walmart. And the jobs they provide keep people under the poverty line, and they become the only jobs available. Stores and restaurants close and the houses fall into disrepair, and after a few years these towns look like something out of the depression. It has happened again and again. Let’s not let it happen here!
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Obamacare may not be a perfect solution, but right now it is the overburdoned taxpayers that are covering the healthcare costs of the uninsured. Business owners have avoided the responsibility to walk away with bigger profits and leave people to use City hospital emergency rooms as their doctors office. How many hospitals have been forced to close because they can’t stay open when no one is paying a bill?
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I ask you to watch this video, that is not the case when Walmart comes in, it is a business magnet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtcBiaflUQ
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Mike,
To an untrained eye I would imagine that would be a very encouraging video. Did you notice who bought and paid for that video? Did you realize it was a Wal-Mart infomercial? The stakes are very high for Wal-Mart to get into New York City. A concentrated area with 8 million residence.
I can understand why you think what I’m saying does not make sense but as I mentioned before, understanding Wal-Mart has been a hobby of mine and that I spent over 15 years researching it. I have hands-on knowledge of whole towns and cities whose wealth has diminished to a point where the people are just existing.
Many people are saying they want to go to Wal-Mart to buy things cheaper and if Wal-Mart comes to New York City I think there will be a time when people shop at Wal-Mart because they can’t afford to go anywhere else.
The website for that video is….
Copyright 2011 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
http://www.WalmartStores.com
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listen its not pathmarks fault its a&p and we work had for our money n we have family to help support. i do hope our union gets another store with 1500 in it so we can have a job
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Besides the space being too small for a store like Walmart, that area doesn’t have enough parking to have a store like that open there. Parking is bad enough with Pathmark & the other stores. I hope another supermarket opens in that spot but one with reasonable prices.
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Hey Bugg, read a little bit. Supermarkets have had health care for their employees for decades. It has nothing to do with Obama.
Will a Pathmark worker please come on the board and tell buggy that you had coverage for many years.
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as a pathmark worker anon u are right we have coverage way before obama took office. we are a union and like all unions they give us coverage the parttimes get 1/2 coverage with the choice of full for a lil more and the full timers are covered in full. we are put in the union after the 1 month and belong in it till we leave
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Hey Bugg, did you read what the pathmark worker wrote? Maybe you are just a racist.
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Bugg, you seem to have tunnel vision in regard to this issue.
I’m not about to debate the merits of Obamacare, positive or negative with you because it has very little relevance with Pathmark closing. There is a history of mergers and acquisitions in regard to this issue. A&P was purchased by a German conglomerate and then purchased Waldbaums and Pathmark and others nationwide. In doing so created a huge debt that the stores have to deal with. Pathmark was already at this location when it was acquired by A&P’s parent company. Once Pathmark took on this huge debt it became extremely difficult to survive at marginal locations. If you were familiar with similar situations with different corporations like banks, drug stores and department stores, you would understand that what happened to this Pathmark is quite common.
It’s apparent that you favor a conservative point of view which is fine with me but it makes little sense to further your agenda with issues that have no relevance to this topic.
Oh, by the way if your premise was correct wouldn’t Trader Joe’s suffer the same fate at this location?
If so, why bother to hope that one would open at this location?
To take it one step further according to your Obamacare premise wouldn’t all retail stores will eventually close?
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So Bugg,
We’re going to just skip over the whole discussion about why Pathmark was closing?
Convenient.
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I think between the Garbage Trucks on Knapp street,The Pollution Control Plant and White Island you reaaly would not notice the difference.
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Hate to burst your Bubble ,I still own a house on Celeste Ct. To answer your question. ever hear the expression you can not take your eyes off a truck wreck.Really I hold no malice towards you or anyone back home in the Beach, it was a nice place to live. What was /was…Life goes on.God Bless hope you are all well.
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Thank you Trainman for making sense. I was letting Bugg have the last word. He did not really deserve it though. What is bugg? Brooklyn union gas guy? I just went on the Trader Joe website and they offer medical, vision and dental benefits to full and part time workers already. They have been doing this before Obama even held public office.
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PointTaken,
I’ve heard that argument for many years but you, like so many other people, are either unaware or are purposely misleading the public.
Sure, Wal-Mart would hire approximately 350 people in a supercenter but we will also lose 1000+ higher paying jobs in the surrounding area. You’ll also lose dozens of family owned stores that will turn whole neighborhoods into urban plight. Owners who live and spend their money in the neighborhood will cease to exist. Of the thousand or so employees who are lucky enough to find another job will surely find one at a reduced wage.
So here we have stores that have closed resulting in less corporate/income taxes paid to the city state and federal government. You have employees paying less taxes because they make less money or even worse we’ll be paying unemployment insurance to literally hundreds of these ex-employees further exacerbating the tax burden on the city.
All the while this wonderful moneymaking machine we call Wal-Mart will take their earnings and expand their empire in other cities, states and even other countries.
Not a fair trade off, don’t you think?
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that is not true
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtcBiaflUQ
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We had about 4 different companies looking at the store yesterday no answers yet. n union 1500 would not let walmart into that location
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Pathmark worker,
During my 40 years as a local 342 member I also represented my union as a shop steward. I’m not sure if this applies today but I remember it was a state law that if another supermarket opens a store at the same address they must also be unionized and in your case it would be local 1500 and local 342.
Good luck :-)
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No it doesn’t but the one thing a&p is doing right is to make sure it is a unionized store n if so we were told 1500 would get us jobs there
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Sam Walton (you should be so lucky):
There is a concerted effort in this country to destroy whatever unions are left stating the same rhetoric you expressed here. Unions arose because of the injustice companies showed to their employees. I use the word injustice in a most compassionate way. Slightly over 100 years ago there was what we called company towns…..companies that hire people to work for them but also own the housing those people live in and the stores those people shop in. It’s documented that these companies paid their workers in salary just a little less than what was needed to live and feed their families, virtually making them indentured servants. It was this kind of labor practice that brought on the unions in the first place. If you read your history you would know that literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of people sacrificed their lives so that future generations would be insured a decent standard of living. Are there abuses? Absolutely. There have been politicians in the past that overlooked the extravagance of some demands because the unions assured those politicians, Republican and Democrat, of complete support.(Votes)
Because of unions, nonunion workers today enjoy benefits such as a 40 hour week, coffee breaks, medical coverage, sick leave and overtime pay.
Another byproduct of unions is that it raised the income of nonunion workers who lived in a time when we actually built things in this country. Nonunion companies needed to compete for labor from unionized companies so they had to offer higher salaries and benefits.
Much of that is gone now so we’re left with shortsighted angry people who are struggling to make ends meet.
Why would you think that once unions are completely destroyed that these corporations would not return to those same practices?
My suggestion to you is: Don’t complain how much more a union worker makes than you; Question your boss why you make so much less.
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No, we think that if the other 88% were in unions that we could wipe out poverty. And the degradation of people who say work for a bank for 20 years and then get ‘laid off’ during a ‘reorganization’. When all it really is is that the bank has looked at the salaries of their best, most loyal employees and decided that THEY would rather keep that money. So they are free to just pink slip the employee while sucking up millions and millions in profits, bonuses etc. Unfortunatly, greed exists and unions are necessary to keep employers from taking advantage of people.It prevents an employer from getting rid of you because you have become a bit older and maybe move a bit slower. It prevents bosses from getting rid of you because they simply don’t like you. In 1965, when 45% of this country belonged to labor unions, we enjoyed the best economic growth and prosperity that this country has ever known. Unions created the middle class and as you can see, with the decline of union membership comes the decline of the middle class as the gap between rich and poor becomes ever wider. I wish everyone belonged to a union!
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Beachwalker,
Great response!!!!
Apparently Sam is caught up with all the talkingheads BS propaganda.
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Thank you Trainman. People do seem to get caught up in this Blumberg mentality of blaming union membership on everything. If you watch the video above, take a look at Fidlers face when Weiner mentions the union. lol, he looks like he just bit a lemon! Blumberg hates unions because he can’t just ramrod through them. If it weren’t for unions, he would have replaced us all for minimum wage workers during his second term. Just the fact that the rich, like Blumberg, and the CEO of Walmart are against them should make the 95% of us that aren’t millionaires/billionaires realize that they don’t want to pay fair wages, respect seniority, provide healthcare and a decent standard of living to the “little people”. They want it all!! I’ll never get rich at my job, but it provides some security. I live paycheck to paycheck like many other union workers, I haven’t had a raise in 4 years!, but at least when the boss changes, he can’t just dump me or anyone else without a proven cause. And that’s all my union really does, keeps it fair. What is wrong with that?
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So now you want to be called Wal*Mart Supporter…. no matter what you call yourself now you still sing the same old tired song. Before I start listing documented statistic after statistic to prove you wrong, I’ll save my energy and just ask you to support your data with links to that information so everyone could just click and see.
Anyone as knowledgeable about the subject as YOU say you are, that should be easy :-)
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No, your entire post is BULLSHIT! Walmart pays better than union wages? You better check your facts. The average Walmart worker makes 8.00 an hour. Could you live on that? Ever hope to save for a house? Send your kids to college? And I am not comforted to know that the same number of stores would close if it were a Target opening, it just makes me not want a Target to open nearby either.
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Sure Sam Walton*Supporter how many other synonyms do you use to avoid answering a direct question? I asked Mr. supporter to provide proof of his diatribe and poof Mr. Sam Walton’s back. How convenient.
Show me the money, honey.
I have 40 years in this business and knowing how Wal-Mart works has been a hobby of mine for the last 15 years. I have seen and read about the results of Wal-Mart in numerous cities throughout the US so you and nobody else would ever convince me that Wal-Mart has the best interest of its employees the community at heart. There was a study done seven years ago that showed if Wal-Mart just raised its prices 10% it would be able to pay all its employees $25 an hour.
Here in New York City that’s a living wage.
Let’s have the links, Sphinx
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Trainman, you are the man! Thank you for your posts. Tell them about all the factories Walmart has closed in the U.S.A. This was because Walmart wanted their vendors and suppliers to open up factories in China. Good paying jobs gone forever. I remember they forced Rubbermaid to close in Ohio. When they refused, Walmart gave them tiny shelf space in their stores. Rubbermaid relented and opened a factory in China. Walmart then gave them huge amount of shelf space. Walmart did this because they wanted to buy and sell Rubbermaid products at a cheaper price. Why do you think the American economy is in such bad shape? Nothing is made here anymore and Walmart is the biggest culprit. They made fortunes on the backs of Chinese slave labor. The more you read about Walmart, the more you realize they are an evil corporation.
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Thanks anon. Your proof if anyone takes the time to read about this monster of a company they would know how dangerous it is to our quality of life in this country. I know of that story along with what they tried to do to Snapper lawn mowers and many other companies. In order for any company get in the door they are told to reorganize there company and produce a cheaper product. The only way a company can reduce the price of a product is to cut labor costs.
Everything else is a constant.
There’s also the story of the only flatscreen TV maker in the US being driven out of business because China was subsidizing their flatscreen producers so they can undercut our US maker. This company sued the Chinese company in federal court for unfair trade practices and who do you think represent the Chinese company in US court? You guessed it….Wal-Mart. I don’t think most people realize how huge Wal-Mart is. The last time I checked they had over 32,000 stores worldwide. 350 in China alone. If they were a nation they would be ranked 17th in the world for wealth.
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I understand your attitude,however if people only consider price one day when you or a family member needs employment and Walmart is one of the only options.At that point the Monsters affects will sink in. They mainly hire part time (to avoid giving benefits).The pay scale is very low. The best answer is buy a little less and not from China Mart.
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One day you or a family member will need a job be my guest apply at Walmart.Most of the time will be part time with no benefits. BTW you could buy a little less at a smaller store and not support China mart.FYI Google toxic Chinese products and read what the Walmarts are selling you and poisoning your Family.
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Anonymous,
Speaking as a lifelong union blue-collar worker and someone that was very involved with my union also with the history of unions, I am convinced without unions we will be at the mercy of our employer’s greed.
Speaking as a retired person who is on my second year of Social Security without an increase, I certainly understand the reasoning behind your need for less expensive necessities.
I was fortunate that I was able to save for a period of my life where I could fulfill many of the dreams I had in my youth. Top on the list is traveling throughout the US. Soon after my wife retired we were able to fulfill part of the dream and trek out on a 39 day cross-country trip. Besides the beautiful scenic landscape of the Midwest I had an opportunity to witness how many people live. When I speak to the dangers Wal-Mart presents over the working class people was acquired by not only literature that I read also first-hand observations. Town after town on many interstates and along secondary roads showed nothing but despair and resentment from the people who lived there. From the conversations I had in many towns the same scenario was repeated over and over and over again. It seemed the fortunate ones were the ones who were near their retirement age. They knew once they receive Social Security at least they knew it would guarantee some income and minimal medical coverage for the rest of their life. They told the same story of large factories closing down and moving their jobs to China leaving them nothing but big box stores and $.99 outlets.
At present time the biggest assault towards unions is not the private sector. The private sector already eliminated most of the unions through consolidation and outsourcing. No, our biggest danger to the remaining unions and the quality of life these union members will have is the very people we vote into office. Our mayor who seems to have money to hire 4 and $500,000 consultants and fancy technologies such as CityTime with hundreds of millions of dollars in overruns, can’t seem to find the money to pay for teachers unless they create a crack in their union benefits which will widen each year a new budget is being negotiated.
Then I read of the young teachers in support of eliminating seniority for teachers. I’m sure they never took a minute to realize that some day they will be the senior teacher that will be replaced by a teacher willing to work for half their salary. It’s a sad time and sometimes I really feel like I’m in the minority when I say this is the first generation that will not be able to think that they will be better off financially, than their parents.
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Just to let u all know a&p r closing a lot of their stores food basic n thea lot more will be told to the publi soon
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I doubt A & P will close Food Basics. That place is a gold mine. The parking lot is always jammed. On the other hand, the Pathmark on Nostrand Avenue is a ghost town.
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We got the notice a&p really needs to close stores if u don’t wanna believe it the don’t
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A prooacvtive insight! Just what we need!
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