Business news for Thursday, May 1, 2008

Home Depot to close some locations ...

Atlanta-based Home Depot has announced it will close more than a dozen stores nationwide. Citing poor performance, the home improvement giant will close 15 locations, including 3 in Wisconsin and 2 each in Ohio, New Jersey and Indiana. A spokesman for Home Depot says some of the 1,300 employees affected will be relocated, while others could lose their jobs. This marks the first time the home improvement retailer has ever closed a flagship store for performance reasons. Home depot is the world's largest home improvement store chain, with more than 2,200 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China. The closures - slated to take place within the next two months -- represent less than 1 percent of Home Depot’s existing stores. And, although new store capital spending will be reduced by $1 billion over the next three years, Home Depot says it will go forward with plans to open 55 new stores in the 2009 fiscal year.

Delta pilots begin voting today on benefits package ...

Delta pilots begin voting today on whether or not to approve changes to their benefits package that would include among other things … pay raises. If approved by the union, in addition to a pay hike, Delta pilots could see an expanded stake in the combined airline as merger talks with Minneaspolis-based NorthWest continue. Delta has agreed to extend its existing collective bargaining agreement with the pilots union through the end of 2012. The revised contract provides the 74-hundred Delta pilots a 3.5 percent equity stake in the new company. The agreement becomes void unless a majority of rank-and-file Delta pilots who vote approve it. It does not cover Northwest's 5,000 pilots, who have their own separate bargaining unit. Pilots for NorthWest have repeatedly refused to sign on to any agreement which could cost them seniority in the new airlines. Voting for Delta pilots runs through May 14th.