Saturday, April 30, 2005

Ghanaweb and the Terminal Market

Ghanaweb has a recount of the press conference and urges New York's Ghanaians to help save this largest African market on the east coast.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Bronx Terminal Market Media Coverage

As we mentioned yesterday, the press coverage of our rally was tremendous and as a result a number of great stories came out today. Here is a sample:

Newsday

Daily News

El Diario

Hoy

NY1

Bronx 12

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Bronx Terminal Market Rally Update

The rally could not have gone better. Almost every major news outlet was at City Hall this morning. 1010 WINS is currently running a nice piece and other radio stations should be doing so as well. Keep your eyes open for the stories on the news tonight and in the papers tomorrow (We'll have them linked tomorrow). Tom Robbins of the Village Voice, who wrote this amazing piece on the market, also has a new related article about Anthony Weiner and his views on Bloomberg's development plans for the city. Lastly, here are some pics from today's event:

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Bronx Terminal Market Rally

There will be a rally to support the Bronx Terminal Market merchants today at 11:00 a.m. on the steps of city hall. At our main site there is plenty of background info as well as a detailed press release. Already this morning we see coverage from the New York Sun, El Diario and Crain's.

National Anti-Wal-Mart Efforts

Wal-Mart Watch, a national coalition, has taken out a full page ad in USA Today critiquing, among other things, Wal-Mart's outsourcing to China. As has been pointed out by many others, for a company that prides itself on being "American," most of its goods are made in Chinese sweatshops.

Another national umbrella group, Wake Up Wal-Mart, is emphasizing the company's drain on tax payer dollars. Hmm, that sounds familiar.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Wal-Mart letting taxpayers foot bill

Susan Bucher, D-West Palm Beach, opines nicely on how Wal-Mart is costing the taxpayers of Florida millions due to their employees disproportionately utilizing public health care programs. Making matters worse, she says, is the fact that Wal-Mart is receiving millions in state subsidies to build stores and create good jobs.

Irony at its finest

Wal-Mart, through its Sam's Club division, has just released a survey that finds business owners are wary about their economic futures. While more confident than consumers about the economy, these entrepreneurs continue to plan layoffs, possibly at even greater rates than at present. Could the fact that Wal-Mart is putting them out of business, or at least making business more difficult, have anything to do with this? This may be the first time a company releases a survey where it is a major contributor to the problems it's investigating. Ah irony!

The survey also mentions how health insurance expenditures are a major problem for the average small employer. Maybe these businesses should follow the Wal-Mart model and shift its health costs to the state.

Anti-Wal-Mart Campaign and Howard Dean

An interesting article about how the nationwide campaign against Wal-Mart is, like Howard Dean did in his campaign, emphasizing grassroots organizing via the Internet.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Rally to Save the Bronx Terminal Market

There will be a rally this Tuesday April 26th at 11:00 a.m. on the steps of city hall to highlight the need to preserve the Bronx Terminal Market or, at the very least, resettle the merchants together in another viable location. These 23 predominately minority entrepreneurs comprise the largest ethnic market on the east coast but their new landlord, the politically-connected Related Companies, has evicted them in order to begin construction of a 1,000,000 square feet of big-box-laden retail space. At no point was anything resembling an open bidding process conducted and never were the wholesalers offered any relocation plan where they could maintain their market. Despite employing 700 workers and supplying tens of thousands of stores, bodegas and restaurants, the merchants at the Bronx Terminal Market have so far been left out in the cold. For more information check out our press release.

Website Launch

Our website momandpopnyc has been launched.