Industry Advocacy

The Union representing workers at the Zallies and Ravitz Shop Rite supermarkets in southern New Jersey today hand delivered a seven-day strike notice to the company, as required by law. If no agreement is reached by midnight on Thursday, September 6, 2001 thousands of supermarket workers could be walking picket lines instead of checking out customer grocery orders.

The Board of Directors of Philip Morris Companies Inc. on Wednesday announced that William H. Webb was elected to the position of Vice Chairman, Philip Morris Companies Inc., effective immediately.

workers at Rice Epicurean Markets walked off the job and marched in picketlines Monday after contract negotiations with the supermarket chain collapsed.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, representing over1,100 workers at Laneco stores in eastern Pennsylvania today announced that it was willing to recommend that the workers whowere recently laid off accept a severance proposal made by Supervalu.

UCCnet, a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization that provides industry standards-based, global data synchronization, recently announced the formation of an advisory council to inform UCCnet regarding issues of enhanced functionality, product performance and usability within the organization's universal foundation for electronic commerce.

Food Distributors International (FDI) and National Grocers Association (N.G.A.) announced today that they are partnering with AmeriQuest, the transportation and logistics company based here, to launch a new buying service that will save member companies that operate truck fleets millions of dollars in lower prices and new efficiencies. The new service, www.foodfleetxchange.com, opened for business today.

A diverse group of antitrust experts, national consumer organizations and major farm groups have joined forces to announce their opposition to Nestle's $10.1 billion merger with Ralston Purina. If regulators approve the deal, Swiss-based Nestle would become the world's biggest pet food company and control roughly 45 percent of the $7 billion U.S. pet food market.