Best Buy is apparently responding to a flurry of pro-union emails circulating among Geek Squad technicians. The Consumerist blog has published an email it says was sent by corporate management to GeekSquaders last week. The letter says Best Buy is not afraid of unions, but it is “concerned” about how a union would affect the company and its relationship with employees. The pro-union chatter appears to be coming from mostly anonymous sources, including one person writing under the alias “Wilt Chamberlain.” Public posts on a pro-union message board didn’t give many clues as to what their gripes are about.
More Best Buy: Some big, if tangential, news breaking this morning: Rival Circuit City has confirmed rumors that it will be closing 155 stores nationwide. That’s about one-fifth of its 700 stores, the Associated Press notes. Reuters reports that Circuit City has come under “intense competition from Best Buy,” which continues to gain market share in several electronics categories and is aggressively expanding globally despite the economic slowdown.
You say tomato, I say… vegetable noodle. A labeling mishap at the soup factory earlier this year means a batch of Progresso Light Vegetable and Noodle soup on grocery-store shelves is mislabeled as Progresso Hearty Tomato Soup. General Mills issued a voluntary recall on Friday. There’s isn’t a health risk associated with the recall, except to inattentive tomato-soup eaters allergic to vegetable-noodle ingredients such as egg, milk or soy. The soup is in 19-ounce cans with 19May10 NVVN-3 printed on the bottom of the can.
The activist investor lobbying Target to spin-off its real estate also pitched a “very similar” plan to McDonald’s in 2005, according to a blog at Seeking Alpha. William Maloney writes that even though McDonald’s didn’t bite, Bill Ackman was eventually successful in pressuring the fast-food giant into unlocking more value for shareholders. He’s likely to continue that pursuit with Target, too, regardless of whether the company passes on his proposal, the blog says.
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