Labor & Employment

Boca Raton, Fla. -- Office Depot has appointed Troy Rice as executive VP of retail, effective April 14. Rice, who replaces Juan Guerrero, will also serve as a member of Office Depot’s leadership team and report directly to chairman and CEO Roland Smith.
 

Washington, D.C. -- The National Retail Federation (NRF) has urged Congress to pass the bipartisan Save American Workers Act, which would change the Affordable Care Act’s definition of full-time employment from 30 hours per week to 40 hours. NRF sent a letter to the House saying all votes related to the bill, H.R. 2575, would be considered key votes for the association’s annual scorecard.

Arysta LifeScience president and CEO Wayne Hewett will stand for election to The Home Depot’s board of directors when current director Bonnie Hill steps down.

Dallas -- AT&T will hire more than 3,000 retail sales and sales management employees nationwide during the next several months. The retailer said the new employees are needed to meet increased customer demand in the company's growing retail business.

New York -- The Neiman Marcus Group is reorganizing its leadership structure by merging its stores and online management structure into one team as it looks to expand its presence across all channels. The change will take effect April 14.

Talk of nearshoring and a resurgent U.S. manufacturing sector weren’t enough to help the Stanley Furniture Company avoid shuttering a domestic manufacturing plant that employs 400 people.

Following steep losses last year, Stanley said it would close its 562,000-sq.-ft. facility in Robbinsville, NC., where ironically enough the company’s Young America line of Juvenile furniture was manufactured.

Sunnyvale, Calif. – Application support and maintenance (ASM) may hold potential to deliver $6.8 billion in savings to Fortune 2000 organizations. According to a survey of 300 U.S. and U.K. CIOs released by IT services provider HCL Technologies Ltd., ASM now accounts for 38% of large organizations’ overall IT budget each year.

Washington, D.C. -- The National Retail Federation (NRF) has publicly called Senate legislation aimed at increasing the federal minimum wage by 40% an anti-job tax that would lead to higher labor costs for employers and fewer opportunities for young and entry-level workers. NRF will include votes on the minimum wage as “Key Retail Votes” in its annual voting scorecard used to measure legislative support for the retail industry’s public policy priorities.