Bookstores

Two longtime employees of Cody’s Books have filed a complaint with California’s Labor Commission “alleging that the bookstore violated its contract with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by not paying its workers paid time off when the store closed down in June,” the Berkeley Daily Planet reports. Cody’s liquidated its assets in August to pay off their bank lien, though they never filed for bankruptcy. The union rep for Cody’s employees Sharon Sherburn-Zimmer says, “If they went bankrupt they would have to pay off secured creditors first. But since they didn’t go bankrupt they have a contractual obligation with […]

With shares in the bookseller up considerably from their pathetic level earlier this summer, Standard & Poor’s lowered their recommendation on Barnes & Noble’s stock to “sell” on “continued challenges in the bookselling market.” The report says, ““while we applaud (Barnes & Noble) for managing costs effectively in a challenging environment, we remain concerned about further gross margin erosion, driven by competitive pressures from online peers.”Forbes

Jessica Stockton Bagnulo’s efforts to grow a bookstore in Brooklyn are Timesworthy, as the paper’s metro section looks at the party thrown by the Fort Greene Indie Bookstore Initiative. “Given everything else going on in the world, [it] felt like a pocket of irrational exuberance, even extravagance — a through-the-looking-glass scene in which an independent bookstore, of all things, was the cause for great optimism and celebration. “Halfway through the event, Ms. Stockton Bagnulo announced with glee that she had a business partner — Rebecca Fitting, a 34-year-old sales representative for Random House who decided a few weeks earlier to […]