Daily News Roundup

Lots of good stuff in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Dissmores Changes Hands

The Tidyman’s supermarket chain, which numbered 21 stores in three states before a financially damaging sexual discrimination lawsuit, has announced plans to sell its last eight stores.

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McGregor’s is purchasing Dissmore’s IGA store in Pullman, according to a Tidyman’s news release. Tidyman’s had purchased Dissmore’s IGA in 1998.

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Debbie Langton, secretary-treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers Union 1439, said her office had received numerous inquiries from employees worried about their jobs although Tidyman’s was not a union store.

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The next year, however, a federal jury ordered the company to pay $6.2 million in a sexual discrimination lawsuit brought by two former employees who accused Tidyman’s of denying them promotions because they were female and paying them less than their male workers.

Since then Davis has said the company lacked sufficient insurance to buffer the impact of the ruling.

Where to start? A supermarket chain going out of business because of its own malfeasance and not Wal-Mart? The fact that Dissmores is owned by an out-of-town chain, not Mom and Pop as PARD would have you to believe? Or, the fact that PARDners stood with a straight face in the Dissmores parking lot and gathered petition signatures against Wal-Mart because of is it wasn't unionized and discriminated against women? The irony is so rich, I can't choose.

Hoisted On Her Own Petard

Speaking of irony and instant karma, Linda Pall has been carrying the liberal water quite a bit lately with all her talk about raising the minimum wage. But she made the mistake of voting against a Moscow police union.

Leaders of a state labor organization say they are not pleased with Moscow City Councilwoman Linda Pall.

When Pall voted June 5 against a proposal to unionize the Moscow Police Department, the Idaho AFL-CIO took it personally.

“We’re disappointed about her turning her back on the working people,” said Dave Whaley, president of the Idaho AFL-CIO. “When we have unions that put in financial help, we don’t take that endorsement lightly.”

The City Council vote resulted in the rejection of the police officers’ request to unionize, an issue that has resurfaced throughout the years.

At the AFL-CIO’s convention last week in Boise, the executive board discussed how to deal with Pall’s actions. The group, along with local labor organizations and individuals, contributed about $20,000 to Pall’s campaign when she ran for Congress in 2000.

When you make a deal with the devil, he wants your whole soul or nothing at all.

Socialism is Not Dead in Moscow

Lois Blackburn wrote in her Town Crier column today:

A new and potentially more sinister threat loomed. The Thompson family, its Realtors, lawyers and developers wanted to rezone 77 acres across from Moscow cemetery as “motor business,” and build thereon a super Wal-Mart the size of 3 1/2 football fields. On March 8, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended denial of the rezone, with a move toward mixed use.

On May 1, at a packed and highly-charged City Council meeting, public testimony went on until 11:45 p.m., causing the council to postpone a decision until May 15. Contrary to the Daily News headline on May 2, the community was scarcely divided. Wal-Mart opponents outnumbered supporters 2-1. The 15 supporters who spoke included the landowner, the Realtor and several of her associates, and local Wal-Mart employees. On May 15, the City Council denied the rezone. Our council heard us – democracy still lives in Moscow.

Sorry Lois, having a few more liberal activist diehards speaking at a public hearing than normal citizens does not mean that Moscow is not divided. Average working people do not attend public hearings, much less speak at them. It is dangerous and impossible to gauge true public support from a public hearing. If anything, the Wal-Mart decision in Moscow proves that rule by a tyranny of the intelligentsia is alive and well in Moscow, not democracy.

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