Area Residents Will Not Get Priority For Red Apple Supermarket Jobs

For residents eagerly awaiting the arrival of badly-needed fruit and vegetables—not to mention jobs—it was an important first step.

Beginning this week, the office of Councilwoman Letitia James, D-Brooklyn, will be accepting applications on behalf of the Red Apple supermarket in The Andrea building at the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Ashland Place. 

That's the good news. 

Now make room for the not-so-good: according to representatives of the Red Apple Group, laid-off workers elsewhere in city, many of whom are members of UFCW Local 1500, will get first dibs on the approximately 100 positions created at the new market. 

While those union rules provide important protections for existing workers, that means there could be significantly less jobs to go around for residents, particularly those in nearby Whitman, Ingersoll and Kingsview Houses—areas where the need for quality employment with benefits are the greatest. 

"The urgency to connect the unemployed to jobs in these areas cannot be understated," said 50th Assembly committeeman Lincoln Restler, a leading voice in the long fight to bring a low-cost grocer to the area.

That's why Restler, along with James, vowed to work with the Red Apple Group to help as many qualified local applicants get their foot in the door as possible. 

"They made it perfectly clear that the target market for customers are in the Fort Greene Houses and they made a priority to make it clear that qualified applicants will be considered from those areas," Restler said. 

For their part, the Red Apple Group, which also operates the Gristede's supermarket chain, made their applications for their employment available months before the store's target opening date in September. 

And a source within the company said that while Red Apple Group could not promise to narrow its search for applicants from any one given geographical area, the natural inclination of store managers was to give preference to job-seekers who live close-by.

Longtime borough residents may remember that promises of the positive net impact in terms of jobs as a result of new development have been made in the past—namely by Forest City Ratner at Atlantic Yards. However, very few of those construction positions so far have gone to Brooklyn workers, again partly due to union rules. 

But there does seem to be the beginnings of partnership between Red Apple and local leaders to give residents a chance to compete for relatively high paying and secure employment at one of the few unionized supermarkets in the outer boroughs. 

According to Restler, community leaders planned to work with a local nonprofit to help train workers in grocery retail. 

"We will continue to have conversations with the Red Apple Group to ensure that neighborhood residents have access to quality jobs at the site," he said. 

Applications for employment at Red Apple Group can be found here. To apply, bring the completed form to Councilwoman Letitia James' district office, located at 67 Hanson Place in Fort Greene.