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With the potential of a grocery-workers strike looming, one of the largest chains in the Denver area is looking for replacement workers and the other is discounting its prices.

About 15,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 are expected to finish voting in about a week on whether to accept contracts offered to them by King Soopers and Safeway or whether to go on strike. The two sides have been in negotiations on a new five-year contract since April but remain apart on issues such as pay increases, health care and pension funding.

King Soopers said it will begin advertising Saturday for replacement workers in the event of a work stoppage. The chain undertook a worker search back in May and identified some 4,000 workers to hire in the event of a strike, but it feels it needs to update that list, expecting at least some of those who were identified to have other jobs by now, spokeswoman Diane Mulligan said.

“There’s a lot of time that’s passed here,” Mulligan said. “In order that we’re where we need to be, we’re looking to identify another 1,500.”

Safeway officials have not announced any plans to advertise for new workers and said they continue to hope to avoid a work stoppage same day payday loans.

But in news that they said was unrelated to the potential strike, the chain announced this week that it has cut prices permanently by as much as 30 percent on items across the store. The “Everyday Low Price” campaign is a national effort, but the Rocky Mountain area is the last of Safeway’s nine regions to implement it.

Scott Grimmett, Denver division president for the grocer, said the effort is meant to attract more customers at a time when they are becoming more discriminating with their buying dollars. While the timing coincides with the contract negotiations, the company has been working on this promotion for more than a year, he said.

“All of us have seen kind of a new consumer emerge out of this recession,” Grimmett said. “I hear a lot of talk about the new consumer that is similar to those that emerged after the Great Depression — very savvy and sensitive to price.”

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The yen fell broadly on Tuesday after the Bank of Japan announced more measures to ease monetary policy to help the ailing economy following an emergency meeting, while holding interest rates at 0.1%.

Despite its gains against the yen, the dollar fell against other major currencies as risk appetite improved after more clarity about the debt situation in Dubai eased some concerns about the region’s stability.

The yen struggled, but pared losses as the BOJ’s move to provide three-month funds at rock-bottom rates surprised some in the market who had been expecting bolder policy steps, such as expanding purchases of government bonds to push yields down.

Addressing strength in the yen, which shot to a 14-year high against the dollar last week, BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said the central bank’s commitment to keeping rates low would have an effect on currencies in the long run.

"The message is that the BOJ isn’t completely indifferent to currency rates, and this should at least be marginally yen-negative," said Adam Cole, global head of currency strategy at RBC in London, while acknowledging the yen’s initial reaction to the comments had been limited.

Shirakawa spoke to reporters after the BOJ introduced a new operation to provide 10 trillion yen in three-month funds at a fixed rate of 0.1% in a bid to enhance monetary easing by trying to bring down longer-term rates.

The dollar traded 0.5% higher on the day at ¥86.80, having hit ¥87.54 earlier in the day.

The dollar has suffered against the yen, hitting ¥84.82 late last week for the first time since mid-1995, as dollar interbank borrowing costs have fallen below yen ones this year.

The euro rose 1% to ¥130.90, while higher-yielding currencies including the Australian and New Zealand dollar rallied as much as 2% versus the yen.

The euro rose 0.4% to $1.5065 as risk demand rose after restructuring plans by Dubai World, which has been the center of concerns about the region’s debt position, eased some woes about the area’s financial health.

The dollar index fell 0.5% to 74.550, while European share prices rallied roughly 2%.

"The market is keeping an eye on Dubai, but it realizes that it’s likely this won’t lead to a systematic decline in Dubai’s financial sector, so traders are willing to take on risk," said Jane Foley, research director at Forex.com in London.

More dollar/yen weakness?

The Australian dollar rose nearly 1% on the day to $0.9230, boosted after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 3.75 as expected on Tuesday in its third consecutive hike.

Many in the market expect the dollar to stay weak against the yen, which may seriously hamper Japan’s ability to recovery from recession.

Analysts said there was little standing in the way of more yen strength against the dollar so long as U.S. interest rates also remain essentially at zero, and that the prospects of yen-weakening intervention by Japan will remain low given the dollar’s overall weakness.

"(The new BOJ operation) is unlikely to either have a material impact on economic recovery or alter the downward momentum in USD/JPY," analysts at BTM said in a note.

"In fact it may even exacerbate USD weakness by further encouraging the establishment of liquidity fueled USD-funded risk trades."

Political pressure on the BOJ to avert recession has grown, but Tuesday’s decision is seen as a way to avoid a return to a narrow form of quantitative easing, under which the BOJ slashed rates to zero and flooded markets with cash in 2001-2006. 

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Colorado once again ranks high among the states in a report on business climate — this one from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a lobbying and policy group.

The SBE Council's "Small Business Survival Index 2009" rates the states on their public policy climates for small business and entrepreneurship, particularly on their tax structures. It ranks Colorado No. 8, up from 10th last year and 11th the year before.

Besides taxes, factors in the ranking — released Tuesday — include regulatory costs, government spending, property rights policies, crime rate and health care and energy costs.

"Most politicians talk a good game when it comes to small business, but their actions don’t often match their rhetoric," SBE Council chief economist Raymond Keating said in a statement. " … Small businesses, of course, drive innovation, economic growth and job creation. If we want to get our economy back on a solid, robust growth track, then we need pro-entrepreneur policies at the federal, state and local levels.”

The council assigned index numbers ranging from 25.693 for South Dakota — deemed the friendliest state for small business — to 84.795 to the District of Columbia — deemed the least friendly.

Colorado's index is 48.250.

Among the Centennial State's individual rankings in the report are:

• 8th for lowest top corporate income tax rates.

• 10th for lowest top corporate capital gains tax rates.

• 15th for lowest state and local sales and excise taxes.

• 18th for lowest electric utility costs.

• 20th for fewest state and local government employees.

• 20th for lowest state and local property taxes.

• 22nd for lowest crime rate.

• 28th for lowest state and local government spend, 2006-07.

• 36th for fewest "health insurance mandates."

Rated ahead of Colorado as most friendly to small business are South Dakota, Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Washington, Florida and South Carolina.

New the bottom along with D.C. are New Jersey, California and New York.

The Oakton, Va.-based SBE Council is a business advocacy group that says it "works to educate elected officials, policy makers, business leaders and the public to advance initiatives that enhance the environment for entrepreneurship, business start-up and growth."

The group has been visible recently in its opposition to the health-care reform measure that has passed the U.S. House and another that is before the U.S. Senate, calling them overly burdensome to business.

Click here to download the SBEC's summary of its report in PDF format.

And click here for the full report.

In September, Colorado was ranked in fourth place by Forbes.com as among the best states for business in a report assessing business costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life. State officials have been crowing about that ranking ever since. (DBJ report.)

Also in September, the Washington-based Tax Foundation said Colorado has the 13th most business-friendly tax system in the country. (DBJ report.)

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Freer trade can help create jobs and support economic growth, and tariff-cutting accords should not be scaled back on account of the global downturn, senior U.S. and other officials said on Monday.

World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy told a WTO ministerial conference that completing the long-running Doha round would strengthen the global trading system that had helped countries come through the crisis.

But trade liberalization had to be backed by other domestic policies to absorb the shocks of increased competition, he told the opening session of the conference.

Launched eight years ago to open markets and help developing countries prosper through more trade, the Doha talks have been extremely tortuous. Political leaders have called for an accord in 2010, but a deal is not yet ready.

“The moment of truth is fast approaching when you will have to decide whether the 2010 target can be met,” Lamy told trade ministers from the WTO’s 153 members.

“Political leaders are practically unanimous that they want to meet it, but reaffirmation is not enough. Now we need action, concrete and practical action, to close the remaining gaps.”

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Reuters that the ministers and senior officials gathered in Geneva needed to make sure trade can power continued growth and job creation.

“It’s an important opportunity for us to reaffirm the valuable role that liberalizing trade around the globe has in sustaining and promoting growth,” he said.

Many countries hold the United States responsible for the lack of progress in the Doha talks, as issues from healthcare to Afghanistan have higher priority in Washington.

But Kirk told the conference the United States was ready to move into the final stages of negotiations — provided agreement led to real new market opportunities in manufacturing and services as well as farming, the main focus of poor countries.

He repeated America’s call for big emerging countries like China and India to open their markets further to secure a deal.

Outgoing EU trade chief Catherine Ashton expressed concern that negotiations were not moving fast enough to reach agreement in 2010 and said the European Union was committed to a comprehensive deal in the months ahead.

LACK OF REGULATION

Criticism of the WTO and its free trade agenda has increased over the past year following global economic turmoil which many have attributed to a lack of oversight and regulation of financial services.

This week’s gathering falls on the 10th anniversary of a Seattle WTO ministerial meeting made famous by violent protests that contributed to the collapse of the conference. 

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