An Ethical source An unsolicited plug for B&H

On 1/29/2017 9:04 PM, Davoud wrote:
PeterN:
A "long history of..." is not definitive of guilt, either. See Rule 404
Federal Rules of Evidence, which expressly prohibits the admissibility
of prior bad acts for purposes of showing the defendant committed a
similar present bad act.

That's quibbling, and pedantic quibbling, at that. B&H has a history of
worker abuse. I didn't advocate a boycott of B&H, I merely drew
attention to this *fact* for those who might be interested.


You are free to post any facts, even alternate facts. Similarly I am
free to post my reasoning, and the rational for it. Admissible fact
based reasoning, prior to forming conclusions is deeply embedded in me.
Yes, I understand and embrace the concept of circumstantial reasoning.
But the underlying facts should be based upon admissible facts. Probably
because of our backgrounds, you are far more sensitive to innuendos,
than I. My work did not involve national security.



--
PeterN

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 23:19:33 -0800 (PST), RichA wrote:
:
: They are off to New Jersey!
:
:
: Williamsburg, Greenpoint & BushwickBusiness & Economy
: B&H Photo to Move 2 Brooklyn Warehouses and 335 Jobs to New Jersey
: By Gwynne Hogan | January 13, 2017 10:58am | Updated on January 16, 2017 9:18am
: @gwynnefitz
: Twitter
: Facebook
: Email
: More
:
: BROOKLYN — Midtown electronics and photography hub B&H Photo will shut down its Bushwick and Navy Yard warehouses, opting to consolidate operations at one massive warehouse in New Jersey, marking the end 17 years of work in the borough, the company said.
:
: The move, announced Thursday and slated to take place in the second half of 2017, has blindsided union representatives, who were still in the process of negotiating a contract for roughly 300 B+H warehouse employees, they said.
:
: In total, New York city will lose 335 jobs spread between the two locations.
:
: Company executives said they'd tried for several years to find another location in New York City, but blamed their inability to do so on its hot real estate market.
:
: "Large warehouses are not available on the market in NYC due to the booming real estate industry here," wrote Menashe Horowitz, a top executive at B&H, in a memo sent to all employees on Jan. 12 obtained by DNAinfo New York.
:
: "We worked closely with New York State government leaders to find a new home here in New York, but unfortunately we were unable to find a facility here that came even close to meeting our needs."
:
: The Navy Yard facility will become a movie studio when the company leaves at the end of this year, according to David Ehrenberg, the head of the Brooklyn Navy Yard's Development Corporation.
:
: The company will begin moving operations to Florence Township, N.J. in the second half of 2017, where they've secured a a 500,000-square-foot facility, in B&H officials said.
:
: The main Midtown retail outlet, which includes corporate offices and a store warehouse, will remain open with roughly 1,500 employees, management said.
:
: Current warehouse workers at the Navy Yard and Evergreen Avenue warehouse in Bushwick can join the company in New Jersey if they choose.
:
: B&H first opened in 1973 in TriBeCa and moved to various locations before opening its current 34th Street location in 1997. The company used a warehouse in the basement at the beginning and expanded operations to the Navy Yard in 2000, and in 2013 opened their Bushwick warehouse at 105 Evergreen Ave.
:
: But over the years, reports and lawsuits have raised concerns about conditions for workers inside those warehouses.
:
: B&H was sued for racist and sexist labor practices, discrimination and cited for unsafe work standards.
:
: In October 2015, around 300 warehouse workers voted to unionize.
:
: Union spokesman Wayne Ranick said United Steelworkers had been in ongoing talks with B+H to hammer out a contract and only learned earlier this week that the rug had been pulled out of those negotiations.
:
: "We had been bargaining in good faith,” he said. “It was totally unexpected."
:
: The mayor's press office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wow, that's pretty far downstate. I can't say I'm thrilled, because I almost
always get overnight shipment from the warehouse in Brooklyn. That kind of
service from Burlington County stands to be somewhat iffier.

I wonder if the next shoe to drop will be a store in Philadelphia. My daughter
lives in Philadelphia, so I might actually get to see the inside of it,
something I'm much less likely to do in NYC.

Bob

In article ,
Bill W wrote:

On Sun, 29 Jan 2017 21:04:18 -0500, Davoud wrote:

PeterN:
A "long history of..." is not definitive of guilt, either. See Rule 404
Federal Rules of Evidence, which expressly prohibits the admissibility
of prior bad acts for purposes of showing the defendant committed a
similar present bad act.

That's quibbling, and pedantic quibbling, at that. B&H has a history of
worker abuse.

And NLRB has a history of private company abuse. As do unions, and
that's why some of us shrug off those sorts of claims.Which side
anyone falls on usually has everything to do with that person's
politics.

Oki...
--
teleportation kills

On 1/28/2017 9:10 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2017-01-29 01:48:40 +0000, Davoud said:

PeteCresswell:
+1 on B&H: A class outfit in my experience.

Davoud:
OK, but if you want a complete picture you should follow some of
these
links https://www.google.com/search?as_q=b%26h+photo+lawsuits.

Eric Stevens:
I didn't read them all but they all seem to be about B&H being sued
with nothing about B&H being found guilty.

Tony Cooper:
There is enough smoke to know there's a fire. However, it's all about
how they treat their employees. Nothing to do with the quality of
their service to their customers. That has not been disputed.

B&H has enough financial resources to keep the suits grinding through
the court system. You probably won't see a "guilty" verdict. B&H
will settle without admitting wrongdoing. That's the usual outcome of
cases like this.

B&H settled a discrimination case brought by Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission in 2007 by paying $4.3 million. No "guilty"
verdict when a company settles. No admission of wrongdoing.

I give the charges enough credence that I will do business with
Adorama if there's something I need from an online source.

Yes, the charges are legitimate, including the Talmudic discrimination
against women. Their orthodox religion requires them to discriminate
against women, though in any suit B&H might find a degree flexibility
if the settlement cost is high enough.

I, too, agree that their customer service is outstanding. But Adorama
also does a damned good job in that respect. Aside: Years ago I
received a defective item from Adorama. I phoned and talked to a very
nice man (whom I later had the opportunity to meet) who had a strong
Yiddish/Russian accent and Yiddish syntax: "Zo, you got a bost office?"
"Of course." "Zo, you zent it back und ve zent you a new von." As a
linguist (Hebrew, inter alia, but only a few phrases in Yiddish) his
speech was delightful to my ear.

The two outstanding PR/problem solvers at Adorama and B&H that I have
had contact with were Helen Oster and Henry Posner. There was a time
when both of them would make an appearance in the photo news groups to
respond to a disgruntled customer who was venting for one reason or
another.

Adorama has this to say about Helen:
"Helen Oster is one of the most visible members of the Adorama online
team. As the Adorama Customer Service Ambassador, Helen spends her
days—and often, her nights—scanning online discussion forums, news
groups, social networks, photo sharing sites and beyond, answering
customer questions and addressing their concerns. She’s there to help
when problems arise to facilitate their resolution as quickly as
possible.
And you don’t have to wait for Helen to find you: If you ever have an
Adorama customer service question, Helen is always an email away at
and is eager to help."

...and this regarding B&H and Henry:
http://bloomreach.com/2016/03/bh-photo-competes-in-the-amazon-era/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hposner

Henry and Helen are active in the dpreview forums.

On 1/29/2017 1:10 AM, Tony Cooper wrote:
On Sun, 29 Jan 2017 00:22:26 -0500, PeterN
wrote:

On 1/28/2017 9:17 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2017-01-29 00:39:52 +0000, Tony Cooper said:

On Sun, 29 Jan 2017 13:08:25 +1300, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 21:26:32 -0500, Davoud wrote:

PeterN:
Last week I requested a quote from B&H in NY, which was promptly
sent. I
placed the order yesterday and was informed that the price had
dropped.
They automatically billed me at the lower price. No discussion was
necessary. I thought I would pass this along to help in sourcing
decisions as in the past, some here have posted complaints about some
suppliers.
PeteCresswell:
+1 on B&H: A class outfit in my experience.
OK, but if you want a complete picture you should follow some of these
links https://www.google.com/search?as_q=b%26h+photo+lawsuits.

I didn't read them all but they all seem to be about B&H being sued
with nothing about B&H being found guilty.
There is enough smoke to know there's a fire. However, it's all about
how they treat their employees. Nothing to do with the quality of
their service to their customers. That has not been disputed.

B&H has enough financial resources to keep the suits grinding through
the court system. You probably won't see a "guilty" verdict. B&H
will settle without admitting wrongdoing. That's the usual outcome of
cases like this.

B&H settled a discrimination case brought by Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission in 2007 by paying $4.3 million. No "guilty"
verdict when a company settles. No admission of wrongdoing.


I give the charges enough credence that I will do business with
Adorama if there's something I need from an online source.
There is some defence on the part of B&H.
https://petapixel.com/2016/03/07/photos-take-us-inside-bh-warehouse-nyc/
That was interesting. It seems to me that any large organization is s
potential target for economic blackmail.
That's true, but the current suit is by the Department of Labor. It
is not a suit where the proceeds of a judgment or settlement go to the
wronged individuals. If a case where the employees, or ex-employees
are suing, they would divide the proceeds after the court costs and
lawyer's hefty cut. The judgment or settlement would go to the
government here. There may be a "whistle blower" who will get a piece
of it, but that's not been revealed.

The Dept. of Labor has a profit motive too, just like an individual
suing B&H. NYC tries to raise revenue any way it can and it uses law
enforcement and code enforcement to do it. My son is an NYPD cop and he
has a monthly ticket quota to fill. The NYPD denies that they have
ticket quotas because they refer to them as "performance goals". When
the city wants to raise more money, they order a ticket blitz to get it.

Many years ago I managed an off-premises private airport parking
facility in Jamaica, Queens, on the service road of the Belt Parkway, on
the corner of North Conduit Ave. (which is the service road) and 132nd
St. Across the street from the side road, 132nd. St. was a very large
NYC Sanitation depot. They kept hundreds of sanitation trucks there.
Each day, many of the trucks would return to the depot and clear out
some miscellaneous garbage that was in their trucks. They'd empty the
trucks right in the street between our building and their building and
leave the garbage in the street. The city would ticket our company
incessantly for not cleaning the garbage up as it was in the street in
front of our building. It was their garbage and in front of their
building also but the city won't fine itself.

On 1/29/2017 10:40 AM, Davoud wrote:
PeterN:
A small settlement could mean that the cost of defending against the
allegations is being avoided, but $4.3 million?
Erik Stevens:
Tsk tsk Peter!

You should no better than that. Settling is a way to stop the action
and control the costs but it is no indication of guilt or innocence.
The fact of the matter is that B&H has a long history of discrimination
and abuse against immigrant workers and women. Platitudes like "no
indication of guilt or innocence" do not change that fact. The
alternative, that immigrant workers and women have a long history of
conspiring to sue B&H without cause, is unsupportable.

No, there is a history of *allegations* made against them.

On 1/29/2017 10:54 PM, Robert Coe wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 23:19:33 -0800 (PST), RichA wrote:
:
: They are off to New Jersey!
:
:
: Williamsburg, Greenpoint & BushwickBusiness & Economy
: B&H Photo to Move 2 Brooklyn Warehouses and 335 Jobs to New Jersey
: By Gwynne Hogan | January 13, 2017 10:58am | Updated on January 16, 2017 9:18am
: @gwynnefitz
: Twitter
: Facebook
: Email
: More
:
: BROOKLYN — Midtown electronics and photography hub B&H Photo will shut down its Bushwick and Navy Yard warehouses, opting to consolidate operations at one massive warehouse in New Jersey, marking the end 17 years of work in the borough, the company said.
:
: The move, announced Thursday and slated to take place in the second half of 2017, has blindsided union representatives, who were still in the process of negotiating a contract for roughly 300 B+H warehouse employees, they said.
:
: In total, New York city will lose 335 jobs spread between the two locations.
:
: Company executives said they'd tried for several years to find another location in New York City, but blamed their inability to do so on its hot real estate market.
:
: "Large warehouses are not available on the market in NYC due to the booming real estate industry here," wrote Menashe Horowitz, a top executive at B&H, in a memo sent to all employees on Jan. 12 obtained by DNAinfo New York.
:
: "We worked closely with New York State government leaders to find a new home here in New York, but unfortunately we were unable to find a facility here that came even close to meeting our needs."
:
: The Navy Yard facility will become a movie studio when the company leaves at the end of this year, according to David Ehrenberg, the head of the Brooklyn Navy Yard's Development Corporation.
:
: The company will begin moving operations to Florence Township, N.J. in the second half of 2017, where they've secured a a 500,000-square-foot facility, in B&H officials said.
:
: The main Midtown retail outlet, which includes corporate offices and a store warehouse, will remain open with roughly 1,500 employees, management said.
:
: Current warehouse workers at the Navy Yard and Evergreen Avenue warehouse in Bushwick can join the company in New Jersey if they choose.
:
: B&H first opened in 1973 in TriBeCa and moved to various locations before opening its current 34th Street location in 1997. The company used a warehouse in the basement at the beginning and expanded operations to the Navy Yard in 2000, and in 2013 opened their Bushwick warehouse at 105 Evergreen Ave.
:
: But over the years, reports and lawsuits have raised concerns about conditions for workers inside those warehouses.
:
: B&H was sued for racist and sexist labor practices, discrimination and cited for unsafe work standards.
:
: In October 2015, around 300 warehouse workers voted to unionize.
:
: Union spokesman Wayne Ranick said United Steelworkers had been in ongoing talks with B+H to hammer out a contract and only learned earlier this week that the rug had been pulled out of those negotiations.
:
: "We had been bargaining in good faith,� he said. “It was totally unexpected."
:
: The mayor's press office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wow, that's pretty far downstate. I can't say I'm thrilled, because I almost
always get overnight shipment from the warehouse in Brooklyn. That kind of
service from Burlington County stands to be somewhat iffier.

I wonder if the next shoe to drop will be a store in Philadelphia. My daughter
lives in Philadelphia, so I might actually get to see the inside of it,
something I'm much less likely to do in NYC.

Bob


It is an amazing operation.


--
PeterN

On 2017-03-01 22:03:41 +0000, rickman said:

On 1/29/2017 9:44 PM, PeterN wrote:
On 1/29/2017 9:04 PM, Davoud wrote:
PeterN:
A "long history of..." is not definitive of guilt, either. See Rule 404
Federal Rules of Evidence, which expressly prohibits the admissibility
of prior bad acts for purposes of showing the defendant committed a
similar present bad act.

That's quibbling, and pedantic quibbling, at that. B&H has a history of
worker abuse. I didn't advocate a boycott of B&H, I merely drew
attention to this *fact* for those who might be interested.


You are free to post any facts, even alternate facts. Similarly I am
free to post my reasoning, and the rational for it. Admissible fact
based reasoning, prior to forming conclusions is deeply embedded in me.

Yes, you can choose to ignore any facts you wish and draw any
conclusions, or absence of conclusions, that you like. It's a free
country.. unless you are in the press.

....or the Trump administration.
--
Regards,

Savageduck