INFORM Consumers Act Makes NDAA Final Cut

Michael Hanson, RILA senior executive vice president, public affairs, at the Retail Industry Leadership Association (RILA) issued the following statement in response to the news that the INFORM Consumers Act was included in the Senate’s 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA):

“RILA applauds the inclusion of the INFORM Consumers Act in the Senate’s NDAA substitute. It is an extraordinary step towards curbing the growth of organized retail crime. This bipartisan legislation will modernize consumer protection laws, increase transparency and accountability, and make it much harder for criminals to sell counterfeit and stolen products to unsuspecting consumers.

“Retailers thank Senators Dick Durbin and Bill Cassidy for their tireless efforts on this critical issue that will help deter organized retail crime and protect American families, communities, and retail employees. We look forward to working with members of Congress to see this pivotal piece of legislation makes it to the president’s desk.”  rila.org

Chicago Crime Closures
We must rein in violent crime to help those who need economic opportunity

Businesses are moving out of cities and neighborhoods with rising crime rates.

Americans are more worried about crime than they have been in decades. A recent poll found that 8 in every 10 Americans say they worry about crime either “a great deal” (53%) or “a fair amount” (27%).

This fear is driving businesses large and small out of cities and neighborhoods with rising crime rates. By abandoning these high-risk locations, these businesses take with them any job opportunities they provide to poorer residents.

Local and state governments must focus on reducing violent crime, not just as necessary to protect human life but also because doing so is a prerequisite to real economic opportunity in poor communities.

Increased concern about crime has followed a sharp increase in violent crime, especially homicides over the last six years. In 2021, 12 major cities saw their deadliest year on record. Chicago had its deadliest year in a quarter century.

McDonald’s President and CEO Chris Kempczinski noted that out-of-control violent crime, homelessness and drug overdoses in Chicago were negatively impacting both McDonalds’ restaurant locations and corporate recruitment to the city. He’s committed to staying in Chicago, but other companies across the country are already closing down retail locations in areas experiencing surges in crime.

Starbucks announced it would close 16 locations in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., over safety concerns. Walgreens is closing five stores in San Francisco due to rampant crime. Small businesses from Seattle to Minnesota are citing crime as the reason they’re closing their doors. chicago.suntimes.com

Colorado Springs Wages War on ORC
Opinion: Put retail theft on your radar
If you own a retail establishment and have been hit by shoplifters (maybe several times) in the past year or so, you’re not alone. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported late last month that “[o]ver half (56%) of small businesses in the retail sector say they have been victims of shoplifting in the past year,” according to survey results released Sept. 22 by the chamber. “Fifty percent of small retailers say the issue has gotten worse over the past year,” the organization said, adding 46 percent of impacted small businesses have been forced to increase prices over the past year as a result.

This barely preceded the Colorado Springs Police Department’s news release stating it “has identified an ongoing rise in retail crime across the City of Colorado Springs, although this situation is occurring across the entire nation. Law Enforcement has identified a nexus between retail theft cases and drug use, often tied to the Fentanyl crisis occurring in our community.”

The same day the U.S. Chamber released its survey results, CSPD’s “Divisional Detectives and Patrol Officers partnered with area retailers for a targeted Shoplifting Deployment,” according to a police-issued news release. “The deployment partnered with local loss prevention employees at various retail stores to identify in progress shoplifts and have law enforcement contact the shoplifters, detain, and arrest or cite the shoplifters when it applied. The goal of the targeted deployment was to address multiple shoplifting hot spots across the city.”

“The Chamber has also urged state and local governments to prosecute these theft rings and enact policy changes that would help law enforcement and prosecutors arrest and prosecute these criminals,” according to the chamber’s news release. csbj.com

Impact of the FBI's Crime Data Reporting Gap
FBI crime data gaps and inconsistent media coverage make it difficult to determine whether crime is truly surging
In New York City, murder and shooting incidents are down relative to last year, though violent crime in general is up. Last year, the city saw lower crime across the board than two or three decades ago, though, again, it’s now up relative to 2020.

Data released by the FBI on Wednesday suggested that violent crime nationally didn’t increase much in 2021 relative to 2020. That comports with recent figures from crime victimization data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which indicated that reported violent crime was flat in 2021 and down from before the pandemic.

Discussion of crime in the United States is hampered by broadly inconsistent and uneven reporting of crime data. Some jurisdictions, like New York or Los Angeles (where violent crime is essentially flat, year-over-year) report data regularly. The national measure compiled by the FBI has seen declining participation (thanks in part to a change in what it collects) even as it operates at a substantial delay.

What’s left, then, is largely anecdotal. Stories of violent incidents, always catnip for newscasts, are used to portray a sense of crime that may or may not comport with reality. And Fox News has been very active in trying to portray exactly that sense.

The lack of data is an opportunity for those who might find it useful to suggest that crime is out of control. Though it’s hard to contextualize individual acts of criminality, it’s easy to cast those individual acts as representative of broader trends. washingtonpost.com

Chicago PD is Reacting

Deployment to 55 Areas - Using ShotSpotter Tech - Using Businesses CCTVs
Community Engagement, ‘Surgical’ Policing Credited for Drop in Chicago Gun Violence
In Chicago, shootings are down 20 percent through the end of summer and homicides have fallen 16 percent, with the city’s police crediting the success to greater community engagement as well as a new, more surgical deployment of officers to 55 specific areas where half of all shootings and homicides occur, report Meghan Mistry and Julia Cherner for ABC News.

Chicago invested $1.4 billion to revitalize South and West side communities, which are disproportionately affected by crime,

Meanwhile, police investigations are utilizing “ShotSpotter” technology, where sound sensors are placed throughout Chicago to detect and locate gunfire, and a greater reliance on camera footage from businesses and homes, to solve and prevent violent crime. thecrimereport.org

Police Chief Hails Success With Curfew
Prince George’s juvenile curfew enforcement will extend to end of year
The curfew, which began Sept. 9 for those younger than 17, was set to expire Wednesday before county officials said they would continue to enforce the regulation.

Alsobrooks and Police Chief Malik Aziz at a news conference hailed the curfew as a success, saying certain crimes have gone down, parents became engaged and community members came together to keep young people safe.

Officials said overall crime decreased by 20 percent during the hours of curfew in the first month of enforcement, between Sept. 9 and Oct. 11, compared to the previous 30 days. Officials also said carjackings, contact shootings and violent crime in general also dropped, citing broad percentages.

The specific impact of the curfew, however, is unclear. Crime often dips at this time of year before rising as the holiday season begins, according to a review of data since 2017 by The Washington Post. washingtonpost.com

Former NY Governor says he’s never felt more unsafe in NYC amid crime crisis

Shooting outside NY GOP gov nominee's home sharpens debate over crime & guns

US: 98.6M Cases - 1M Dead - 95.8M Recovered
Worldwide: 627.8M Cases - 6.5M Dead - 607.3M Recovered

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 362  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 811

Why We're Seeing So Many Aggressive Consumers
New Research Points to the Pandemic and, Well, Everything

It's official: The pandemic turned us all into jerks
You've probably felt it. More than two years into the coronavirus pandemic, the world just feels all-round grumpier. Misanthropic. Maybe even antisocial. People get into fights on airplanes, drive wildly. We all have a little less time for one another's nonsense. It's the prickling sense that someone might snap at you at any moment — or that you might do the snapping.

Well, you're not wrong. New research published in the journal PLOS One finds that the personalities of Americans have, in fact, changed. They've gotten more unpleasant. We're more argumentative, less diligent in our home and work lives, less likely to strike up a conversation with a stranger or call an old friend, and less excited about new things. COVID-19 turned us into jerks.

But unlike other disasters, this one didn't come and go in a few days or weeks, like a hurricane or a flood. And the longer it dragged on, the more of a toll it took on our personalities. "The only thing that went wrong," says Brent Roberts, a psychologist and expert in personality change at the University of Illinois, "is the goddamn pandemic kept going." In this theory, time is the unaccounted-for variable in the disaster-personality equation. Our early spirit gave way to despair. And our personalities took a turn for the worse.

But Sutin isn't sure the changes can be blamed on COVID alone. It's impossible to untangle the pandemic from — well, everything. "This was an American sample, so looking at all of the events of the last two and a half years, a lot of things have been going on," Sutin says. Black Lives Matter, January 6, record-breaking heat waves, hurricanes, soaring inflation, stock-market crashes — are you feeling depressed yet? Less agreeable? More introverted?  businessinsider.com

Is this Finally the Year of the 'Twindemic'?
U.S. hospitals brace for an unprecedented winter of viruses
Hospitals nationwide are preparing for another winter with Covid — the first one that's also expected to include high levels of influenza and other respiratory illnesses that have simmered quietly in the background for the past two years.

Flu cases are already rising in parts of the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pediatricians, too, are seeing a growing number of children sick with respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and enteroviruses.

And despite a downward trend in Covid, tens of thousands of new cases are still being diagnosed every day. The convergence of viruses is hitting health care systems as they're forced to reckon with staffing shortages that worsened during the pandemic. nbcnews.com

COVID in California: More than 40% of Americans lied about infection
More than four in 10 Americans surveyed report that they misled others about whether they had COVID-19 in order to “feel normal” and avoid restrictions.

City of Seattle to lift COVID emergency at the end of October

70 Cities & Tens of Millions in China's Zero COVID Lockdowns

One of Fastest Growing Job Sectors in U.S.
Not Just in Retail But in Entire U.S.

Warehousing and transportation has been one of the fastest-growing jobs sectors in the country in recent years, as booming e-commerce demand driven by Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns pushed companies to fill up distribution space to get goods closer to consumers.

Warehousing and storage companies added nearly 100,000 jobs over the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and employment in the sector has doubled since 2016, reaching nearly 1.8 million workers in September 2022, according to BLS.

Questions about the working conditions at warehouses have also grown as the sector has expanded, with companies coming under growing scrutiny over the physical demands of work in the sprawling industrial buildings. Companies have faced questions over the treatment of workers in jobs that can require long hours of walking and lifting. wsj.com

Editor's Note: Which gives rise to a whole set of increased risk for the AP teams and service providers.

From safety issues, workers compensation claims, the rising unionization efforts, business continuity and crisis management, workplace violence, automation and its impact on job force reductions, and the need for more concentrated effort, payroll, and budget to manage the growth. All the while ensuring a safe and positive work environment for the associates. Because it's going to continue to grow and double again regardless of the economic dips and peaks.

Just look at what happened at Amazon in the last week and just yesterday. -Gus Downing

Three Amazon Warehouses Have Mysteriously Caught Fire in One Week
A fire has broken out at an Amazon facility for the third time this week, according to union organizers.

Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, tweeted that the ALB1 fulfilment center in Albany, New York, was on fire early Thursday morning.

On Monday, Amazon employees in Madison, Alabama, were evacuated after a fire broke out in a warehouse, according to local news station WAFF.

Also on Monday, a fire that originated in a trash compactor disrupted operations at an Amazon warehouse in the Staten Island borough of New York City. The Staten Island facility voted to unionize earlier this year.  newsweek.com

Amazon suspends at least 50 Staten Island union workers after protest over warehouse fire
Approximately 100 workers held a sit-down protest at the facility’s main office, demanding to be sent home with pay. "They were saying ‘we don’t feel safe, we don’t feel safe to work,'" Palmer explained.

The workers – who are suspended indefinitely as Amazon probes the incident – were notified by email and phone that their security badges would be unusable during the investigation. The number of suspensions may increase over the coming days.

Warehouse workers at a separate facility near Albany will be voting in their own union election next week. foxbusiness.com

Amazon workers hold walkouts on Prime Day in Georgia and Illinois

Protests took place at four Amazon warehouses

Amazon workers staged walkouts at four of the e-commerce giant's warehouses Tuesday, making demands of the company as it launched its second Prime Day of the year.

The first protest took place in the morning at the retailer's Stone Mountain, Georgia, site, where workers marched outside with signs in front of the building.

Amazon workers at two distribution centers in Joliet, Illinois, also held walkouts over their lunch breaks on Tuesday.

The employees in Joliet were joined by Black Workers Matter Chicago, the Teamsters union and other groups. At one point, the demonstrators blocked trucks from entering the facility.

The small protests in Georgia and Illinois on Tuesday appear to be isolated. To put the demonstrations in perspective. foxbusiness.com

German union calls on Amazon workers to strike during sale

Starbucks' Union War as Activists Launch 'Pumpkin Spice Labor' Movement

Their video which Starbucks Workers United incorporated in a duet, was watched by nearly 25 million people.

Starbucks Ex-Manager Says to NLRB Judge in testimony - He Was Told to Punish Pro-Union Employees
David Almond, who managed a series of Buffalo-area cafes, testified under oath to a National Labor Relations Board judge in August that Starbucks higher-ups listed names of employees the company had determined supported the union, and told him to punish them. The transcript of Almond’s testimony was obtained by Bloomberg through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Starbucks Workers United has filed labor board claims accusing the company of illegally terminating more than 80 of its supporters, including a prominent activist in the Buffalo region recently fired for refusing to remove a suicide awareness pin. bloomberg.com

Editor's Note: We haven't experienced this type of nationalized activity since the 70's. Which is when I was starting my career in retail security and worked thirteen union strikes. With the independent Teamsters, the trucking industry nationwide, did a wild-cat walk out because of the Carter administration's gas prices. With all the truckers nationwide joining in.

It was the scariest experience not just for me but for everyone. As people would throw rocks from over passes at scab truck drivers, killing a number of them. And hundreds of protestors blocking warehouse gates blocking trucks. While security rode shot gun in the cabs during routes to stores and join a line at the gates during the protests.

Not that that would happen again. But the unions are gaining steam as the economic gaps widen and inflation continues.

Bottom line is LP has to be aware and have a plan at every retailer. -Gus Downing

eBay's Former Global Security Team Gets Fed. Prison For Harassing of Journalists
There's no parole in Federal prisons

Two Former eBay Employees Sentenced for Aggressive Cyberstalking Campaign
BOSTON – Two former employees of eBay, Inc. were sentenced today for their roles in a cyberstalking campaign targeting the editor and publisher of a newsletter that eBay executives viewed as critical of the company.

Stephanie Popp, 34, of Louisville, Ky., eBay’s former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and two years of probation.

Stephanie Stockwell, 28, of Redwood City, Calif., the former manager of eBay’s Global Intelligence Center, was sentenced to two years of probation, with one year to be served in home confinement.

On Sept. 29, 2022, co-conspirator James Baugh was sentenced to 57 months in prison, two years of supervised release and was ordered to pay a fine of $40,000. Also on Sept. 29, 2022, co-conspirator David Harville was sentenced to two years in prison, two years of supervised release and was ordered to pay a fine of $20,000. Co-conspirators and former eBay employees Philip Cooke, Brian Gilbert and Veronica Zea previously pleaded guilty for their roles in the conspiracy to cyberstalk the victims. Cooke was sentenced in July 2021 to 18 months in prison. Gilbert and Zea are awaiting sentencing.

Continue Reading the Details

Long Island ‘boutique’ & website owner nabbed with $40M in fake designer goods
Lindsay Castelli, 31, of Smithtown sold faux Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Dior, Ugg, and Louis Vuitton knock-offs to scores of unsuspecting customers through Web sites and her store, Linny’s Boutique in Plainview, officials said.

Nassau County detectives recovered 22 printing presses at the store that were used to create “thousands of synthetic heat-sealed counterfeit labels,” which Castelli would then attach to the cheap clothing items before jacking their price way up, police said.

“This was a sophisticated operation operating two fashion merchandise companies, Christian Salvatore New York and Linny’s Boutique,’’ she said, according to CBS.

Castelli was arrested Oct. 7 after a year-and-a-half-long investigation by Postal Inspectors in Operation Rainfall.

If convicted, she could face up to three years in prison, prosecutors said. nypost.com

INFORM Consumers Act Making the News Across the Country
Senate mulls bill targeting online sales of counterfeits and stolen goods
Major retailers have gotten their wish with a bill meant to curb counterfeit and stolen productions added to the Senate’s defense spending authorization.

The “INFORM Consumers Act,” first introduced in the Senate in March 2021, would require online marketplaces to collect, verify, and disclose certain information from high-volume, third-party sellers.

Amazon initially opposed the bill for its focus on online third-party marketplaces (Amazon’s marketplace is by far the largest in the U.S.). The company also said last spring that the bill favored “large brick-and-mortar retailers, at the expense of small businesses that sell online, while doing nothing to prevent fraud and abuse or hold bad actors accountable.”

By the fall, Amazon had thrown its support behind a modified House of Representatives version of the bill. Yet Amazon still knocked “big-box retailers like Walmart and Home Depot, and their respective lobbying groups” for what it described as “push[ing] legislation at the federal and state levels with the purported goal of preventing the online sale of counterfeit items and stolen goods” but that favored brick-and-mortar retail.

The latest Senate bill has the support of both Amazon and its rivals. Last week, Amazon signed a letter along with RILA, NRF, Walmart, Target and scores of other large retailers calling on Congress to add the Inform Act to the defense spending bill.

“This common-sense legislation is critical in helping law enforcement, manufacturers, retailers, and online marketplaces of all sizes work together to protect consumers from bad actors peddling counterfeit and stolen goods,” the letter stated.

The bill, as the letter notes, mandates verification of a seller’s identity as a means to deter third-party sellers from pushing stolen and fake goods in e-commerce marketplaces.

The defense bill is currently up for debate in the Senate. retaildive.com

Editor's Note: Now we see if it makes it through the Senate and then through the budget review process. Which is where a lot of add on's, which this amendment would be considered, are cut in last minute deals.

With both trade associations, the NRF and RILA, pressing it just might make it through. Which will be an industry second. Right behind the EMV transition. After hundreds of millions in fraud in a very short time, as a result of advances in technology fraudsters capitalized on. And dare I say, mostly driven by the Eastern Bloc countries, all protected by Russia.

But the true reason and driving force for the success, even at this point, has to be given to the Buy Safe America effort orchestrated by RILA's Lisa LaBruno, Esq. the senior executive vice president for retail operations at the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) where she is responsible for driving the association’s asset protection, supply chain, e-commerce, and corporate social responsibility offerings on behalf of member retailers.

Another Supply Chain Crisis in the Making?
Rail union rejects deal brokered by White House, renewing possibility of U.S. strike
A union representing about 12,000 rail workers on Monday voted down a tentative contract that was brokered by the White House last month ahead of a possible rail strike.

This vote will force the two sides back to the negotiating table and creates the possibility of a nationwide strike. The potential work stoppage could paralyze the nation's supply chain and transportation rail service later this fall as the U.S. enters peak holiday season.

Four unions have ratified contracts based on the agreement brokered by the White House, while seven have votes pending on the deal. The eleven unions represent about 115,000 rail workers. abcnews.go.com

Kohl's, Target and Best Buy announce Thanksgiving closures

Dollar Tree, Family Dollar look for a few thousand good people

Kroger to hire thousands ahead of the holiday season

BJ’s opens new headquarters in Marlborough, Mass


Quarterly Results

LVMH Q3 sales up 19%, YTD sales up 28%
 

Senior LP & AP Jobs Market

Corporate Director, Asset Protection job posted for Luxottica in McDonough, GA
The Director of Asset Protection (AP) is a leader at the EssilorLuxottica organization who is responsible for protecting EssilorLuxottica employees and merchandise. The Director of AP develops and ensures execution of the overall security strategy, implements programs to protect employees and property, supervises and trains the AP team, oversees investigations, manages vendor relationships, cultivates partnerships, maintains high team morale, ensures a robust visitor control program, and has oversight of physical security systems and related technologies to include alarms, metal detectors, access control systems, and CCTV systems and strategies. jobs.luxottica.com