I am quite upset by your terse reply to this long and heartfelt outpouring from a dedicated and now distraught employee. For someone trying to pay for a roof to live under, get kids through school, keep up insurance payments--three billion in sales is an astronomical figure. But apparently you are more worried about parsing words than understanding the extreme duress your demands are placing on working families. Where is your heart, BeLoyal?
“Our family to yours-a Raley’s odyssey”
What has lead to the fine family business known as Raley’s to turn from one of the best places in America to work, to one where the grandson would give the food away rather than pay his grandfather’s employees??
Unlike his grandfather & mother, he grew up in an ivory tower, never having to stock shelves or rub elbows w/ the help.. His mother, having grown up in the store & grandfather not only saw us as employees but as friends, family and associates, having grown together, married and raised families etc together..
Perhaps we should feel sorry for the man now having to run a company he did not create & the burdens he is struggling to carry.. But that is hard to do when single mothers are forced to choose between feeding their children & standing up for themselves..
From high above in the ivory tower a $100 a week seems a mere pittance, but for those living week by week it is the difference between supporting ourselves & getting support from the state….
And sadly many do.. Yes, there are many employees already qualified for services including food stamps, AFDC, etc…
For many of us that have been w/ and loved this company for decades being forced to choose between our own self interest and the personal ambitions of our founders grandson is a bitter pill indeed………
For we built this company with pride and being the best at serving the needs of our customers and our employees..
I hope and pray that those around him, those that grew up in the stores, those for whom had there been no union, as Michael seems to want, they themselves would not be where they are today…
They know who they are and we expect them to speak out, not only on our behalf, but their own..
Michael is a great person, whom I have met many times, so I don’t think it is to much for “us” to ask him to do the right thing.. As we are eager to do right by him, as we have done for his grandfather for 77 years…
We have employees on the street and customers crossing the street but we can get back to work now before more damage is done…
I ask that Michael consider this, as well all friends, family & shoppers write Michael Teel and request that he allow us to work together again, as his family has always done..
Mr Loyal Employee
3 Billion is profits? In reality the company has 3 billion in sales...not quite the same. The margins are low and overhead is high. I can't believe the union member buy into this misinformation.
The new owners of the PD, Doug Bosco and Darius Anderson, make their money as go-betweens between the pension funds/unions who manage trillions of pension fund dollars and Wall Street investment banks and real estate developers. For their services they receive a substantial finder's fee which has caused problems for Darius.
Here are a couple of articles:
http://inlandpolitics.com/blog/2010/08/27/latimes-political-power-player-darius-anderson-under-scrutiny-related-to-pension-deals/#more-12213
http://inlandpolitics.com/blog/2010/03/14/sacbee-darius-anderson-helped-republican-heavy-win-pension-money/#more-4325
They also helped get many of the Sonoma County Supervisors elected.
Our County has the highest pension formulas and salaries in the state. This means more of our County dollars are going to pension payments and less to County services like road maintenance, assistance for those in need, parks, libraries, etc. Instead the money gets shipped off to Wall Street and into real estate investments for their clients and even their own real estate development deals.
Now maybe the unions and the power brokers are getting tired of spending millions on commercials to quash things like campaign finance reform, (Prop 32) and future pension reform propositions, or pension reform candidates which would slow down the gravy train.
So they buy a newspaper that is probably not a good investment on its own but gives them the ability to control the local politicians and the election results by controlling the main news source in Sonoma County.
Typical Rustad. I'll never forget his "cartoons" that he/they/Dutra used against Torliatt in favor of David Rabbit, the faux Democrat.
We canceled our subscriptions to the Argus Courier and Press Democrat due to their extreme pro-business, pro-Dutra bias.
Rabbit, Healy, Miller, Kearney: They're ALL faux regressive Democrats. Don't be fooled. They aren't to be trusted.
This includes Efren Carrillo, faux environmentalist, who stabbed Petalumans in the back and voted in favor of the Dutra Group, who have a history of violating our environment from the west to the east coast. Indisputable!
Here's another little graphic in the vain of "who's really a republican"... http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=…
in the words of Charles Barkley "republicans are full of shit, democrats are just slightly less full of shit."
The press has been going down hill for along time. Let it go...it used to have so much more news...beef up the website..it is so hard to get through....who ever is charge of that get to work...it's not clean...it's old.
Sigh of relief, after reading the news release last night I thought the progressives had their hands in this. Thanks bohemian.
Thanks Nick!
Yeah, I have to say, I didnt like this thing flying so low over my house this past weekend.. it almost looked like it was gonna crash it was so low.. with the fire risk, Id rather them fly somewhere else.
Is there any doubt that a Romney administration would favor the rich and increase the income gap in our country? Mitt is a pariah in Mormon Clothing and will stop at nothing to expand an empire of greed for the rich in this country by expanding tax cuts for the 1% of the wealthiest Americans. He’s out to gut the Middle Class for every red cent he can get. Will his sacred Mormon underwear grant him the protection and money to buy this election? See for yourself as Mitt dons his tighty-whities sent down from the Good Lord Himself at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/05…
There's a lot of info. about Nagasawa and Thomas Lake Harris in the library Annex here in Santa Rosa. I've been doing research on this too. Nagasawa spent several years growing up in Scotland and may have formed long lasting connections there which he may have later used when he ran the winery after the Brotherhood of the New Life fizzled.
Actually we had a founders day parade every year in "A" section and a event in "A" park every year when I was a child in the 80's and 90's it did not move until mid to late 90's when they moved it to the current route, then they lost funding and stopped it all together for many years.
Well that's one way to look at it I suppose. Another would be to enjoy the day with your family and feel fortunate that your city is putting on any event at all. I'll go with option 2 and leave my cynicism and looking down my nose for another time.
I know Bohemians. I grew up in a Bohemian neighborhood and I hung out with many real Bohemians. You sir, are not a Bohemian :)
Not telling people it's $25 to register, huh?
Marin and conservative in the same description??
Re: “Is Raley's Going the Way of Walmart?: Grocery Strike Goes Into Day Four”
I'm just a Raley's customer - but I love the store & go out of my way to shop there for the excellent produce, clean quarters & the friendly staff. I've weighed the arguments and won't cross the strike line, in a show of support to the workers.