Editorial pages across Chicagoland and beyond have been supportive of Walmart’s efforts to help Chicagoans save money and live better.
Aldermen vs. the people
Chicago Tribune | September 21, 2009“We know organized labor wants to keep Wal-Mart from expanding in Chicago. But what do the aldermen’s constituents want? The answer is clear: They want the opportunity to work or shop at Wal-Mart.”
Chicago Tribune | July 17, 2009“Chicago needs new jobs. Wal-Mart wants to provide jobs to Chicago. Ald. Howard Brookins wants Wal-Mart in his 21st Ward. Yet the company and the alderman face huge resistance from the City Council to a proposal for a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the South Side, at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue just west of the Dan Ryan. What’s there now? A vacant lot. A vacant lot where no one is working. The construction of that store on that vacant site would put hundreds of Chicagoans to work. Once the store was opened, at least 500 people would get jobs.”
Wal-Mart Welcome in Employment Field Ruled by Government
Crain’s Chicago Business | June 22, 2009“Passage of the ordinance is a huge economic development issue. In this economy, the City Council should welcome a new Wal-Mart that will provide hundreds of union construction jobs and approximately 500 permanent jobs, and generate up to $3.7 million in city sales tax revenue. It also will provide fresh groceries to residents who live in a food desert.”
Chicago Tribune | June 22, 2009“The City of Chicago, buffeted by the recession, faces the tough choice of eliminating hundreds of jobs or cutting the wages of city workers. Wal-Mart wants to bring more jobs to Chicago. Your choice, aldermen. But if you say no, you better be prepared to explain why Chicagoans are better off not working than drawing a paycheck from Wal-Mart.”
Chicago Tribune | May 1, 2009“That is, the proposal to build a new Wal-Mart doesn’t have the votes to get approved by the City Council. Why is this? Because organized labor would rather gaze upon the vacant lot at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue than see people going to work and shopping there at a Wal-Mart.”
Time to Give Up Fight, OK Chatham Wal-Mart
Chicago Sun Times | March 25, 2009Chicago — specifically, the jobs- and grocery-starved South Side — has always needed Wal-Mart. And now, with unemployment among African Americans approaching 14 percent, the South Side needs Wal-Mart like never before. Chicago opened its first Wal-Mart, in Austin neighborhood on the West Side in 2006. In that store’s first two years, it generated $10.3 million in new sales tax revenue and created more than 400 permanent jobs. The average hourly wage, excluding managers, is $11.30.
Health Care Reform: It Takes All Kinds; Our View – High Costs and Poor Outcomes Bring Unlikely Allies, Even Wal-Mart, Into the Fray
St. Louis Post-Dispatch | March 25, 2009Say what you will about it – in the past, we and other critics have said plenty. But the world’s largest corporation [Wal-Mart] is on the side of the angels for at least one crucial issue: health care reform. It has stepped up its Washington lobbying and pledged to use its considerable resources to push for changes that would improve the quality of care for many Americans.
Chicago Sun Times | March 23, 2009The economy is strangling the economic life out of the neighborhoods — particularly the South Side, proposed site of the Daley-Olympics. Hundreds of new jobs in Chicago’s depressed neighborhoods? That should be golden to our mayor.
At Wal-Mart, a Health-Care Turnaround
The Washington Post | February 13, 2009Once vilified for its stingy health benefits, the world’s largest company has become an unlikely leader in the effort to provide affordable care without bankrupting employers, their workers or taxpayers in the process. From its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., the retailer is doing in the real world what many in Washington are only beginning to talk about.
Jobs On Aisle Three
Investors Business Daily | February 11, 2009In areas of Chicago, as in many cities, there are “food deserts” — areas where major grocery stores and other retailers fear to tread. In these areas, jobs are scarce, the cost of living is high and economic life is particularly hard because of a lack of choice in food, clothing and other necessities. Wal-Mart wants to fill that void and has sent feelers to the city about building five new stores at a cost of $120 million. After the construction work is done, they will employ some 2,500 people at an average wage of $11.25 an hour. And it will cost the government and the taxpayers absolutely nothing.
Chicago Sun Times | December 14, 2007Buying groceries isn’t a luxury. But someone must think that South Siders don’t eat much because there aren’t many stores that offer green lettuce or bananas or ripe tomatoes or even chicken that isn’t breaded and fried. So when a new “supercenter” Wal-Mart offers to move into Chatham at 83rd and Stewart — a vacant lot that no retail store wanted — we have to wonder why city officials are dragging their feet in giving the project the go-ahead.
Chicago Tribune | September 14, 2006Supporters of such ideas haven’t learned the central lesson from this: There is no moat around the city of Chicago. Companies have choices. They go where they can thrive. Passing onerous laws simply encourages businesses to move beyond the city limits, taking jobs with them.
Chicago Aldermen Should Sustain Veto of Big-Box Ordinance
Daily Southtown | September 13, 2006That’s why telling stores like Wal-Mart, Kmart and Lowe’s to increase their payroll by 40 percent won’t be a step toward higher wages. It’ll be a step toward fewer jobs. A city minimum wage can’t possibly be as effective as a national one, or even a state law. At the municipal level, businesses would have attractive alternatives to the city.
Chicago Tribune | August 18, 2006Chicago is specifically targeting the largest retailers, which would put them at a competitive disadvantage to other stores. The strongest argument against the Chicago ordinance is that retailers have choices. They can skip Chicago and locate in Evergreen Park, Morton Grove, Tinley Park or any other suburb. They can take their jobs, their sales-tax revenues and their low prices to the suburbs–right across the street from the city’s border.
Daily Southtown | August 14, 2006There are plenty of places in the suburbs, some of them literally only a few feet away from the Chicago border, where these same companies will be able to open stores and pay salaries at the level dictated by the job market, not Chicago’s aldermen. And the suburbs are close enough to any part of Chicago that city residents will be willing to go to these suburban stores to shop or to work. In other words, the big-box ordinance, if it goes into effect, will cost the city money in property taxes and sales taxes that will go to the suburbs. And for Chicago residents looking for entry-level jobs, the trip to work will be more difficult and time consuming.
Chicago Sun Times | August 10, 2006But this is a red herring diverting attention from the real issue — the pressing need for jobs and economic development in some quarters of the city. A new Wal-Mart or Target store in the economic wastelands that characterize some Chicago neighborhoods would offer entry-level jobs to those who desperately need them.
Chicago Sun Times | August 1, 2006We’ve made it clear why we oppose the ["big-box" store] measure. It could end up costing jobs if Wal-Mart, Target and other stores follow through with threats to avoid the city and locate in nearby suburbs. It puts a mandate on one set of retailers based on an arbitrary 90,000-square-foot threshold. It puts Chicago at a competitive disadvantage.
Crain’s Business Journal | July 24, 2006We believe retail workers deserve better wages. But a law singling out one category of store for regulation while ignoring others who pay just as poorly isn’t the way to make it happen. The proposed ordinance is unfair and perhaps even unconstitutional.
What Lasting Difference Will a Living Wage Really Make
The Chicago Defender | June 29, 2006Here is where we believe the real problem lies. All too often, both minimum wage and living wage advocates ignore the basis upon which the costs of goods and services are determined in a capitalistic economy. They also often ignore the real basis upon which remuneration for work that is performed is established.
