Labor & Employment

Seattle -- Outdoor outfitter REI has added a chief creative officer slot, and hired Ben Steele to fill the position, effective Jan. 1. Steele most recently served as executive creative director at global brand firm Hornall Anderson in Seattle.

 

Washington -- Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to slow down this month following record levels seen in September and October as retailers rushed to bring merchandise into the country ahead of a possible shutdown of West Coast ports, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
  

Minneapolis -- Best Buy has joined the ranks of retailers that have moved up the time their stores will open on Thanksgiving Day. The consumer electronics giant said Tuesday that some 1,000 of its stores will open at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, which is one hour earlier than last year. The stores will close at 1 a.m. Friday before reopening at 8 a.m. on November 28 (Black Friday) and close at 10 p.m. that day.  

The dishes from Thanksgiving dinner will barely be dry when Best Buy stores open at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 28, to treat shoppers to an early wave of doorbuster deals.

No company protects more mobile devices than Otter Products and now the maker of the ubiquitious OtterBox and LifeProof brands has a new CEO.

By Nicholas Fortuna & Paula Lopez of Allyn & Fortuna LLP  

The Walmart Foundation increased to $10 million its investment in an educational program on track to provide training to 60,000 women in 150 factories.

The increased funding commitment to the Women in Factories program begun in 2011 was announced in Beijing by Scott Price, CEO of Walmart Asia at the 2014 APEC CEO Summit. The Women in Factories program has already provided training to 40,000 female factory workers and by the end of 2016 the figure is expected to increase to 60,000 women at factories in India, Bangladesh, China, El Salvador, and Honduras.