Monday, July 26, 2010
Politics / Clout City Chatham Walmart Heads to Full City Council
Posted by Hunter Clauss on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 9:34 AM
On Friday the City Council’s finance committee approved a proposed Walmart for the south-side neighborhood of Chatham, but not before some aldermen questioned whether the big-box retailer will live up to promises it made last month over wages and whether those promises are legally enforceable.
And to address those concerns, the retailer sent in senior manager of public affairs and government relations Gyata Kimmons—a former employee in the mayor’s office of intergovernmental affairs and former director of community affairs for Chicago's Olympic bid.
Some aldermen burst out laughing when Kimmons was asked to state his name for the record. Kimmons told aldermen that the big-box retailer plans to apply the agreements that were reached with the Pullman store to all stores in the “Chicago market,” which includes areas surrounding the city.
Alderman Joe Moore of the 49th Ward asked Kimmons if Walmart was legally obligated to follow through on those agreements.
“I’m not sure,” Kimmons told Moore. “I think it is legally enforceable. We have made the commitment that that’s where we’re standing on, and I would dare say that if we fell short of that commitment, that we’d have some very real issues.”
Ninth Ward alderman Anthony Beale stepped in to say that the vote aldermen took on the Pullman store included the wage agreements and is therefore binding.
Still, Moore asked for the city’s attorneys to come up with a legal brief that would determine whether the city can take the big-box retailer to court if it doesn’t pay up. Moore wondered out loud why the City Council was rushing to approve the Chatham store by next week, and that prompted the store’s chief proponent, 21st Ward alderman Howard Brookins, to butt in.
“How is six years a rush to anything?” Brookins asked.
In the end, Moore was the only alderman to vote against the store, and the plan now heads to the full City Council for a vote on Wednesday.
“Six years later, you finally got your way,” said committee chair and 14th Ward alderman Ed Burke to Brookins as the committee moved on to other items.
Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
I for one welcome our new Bentonvillian overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Internet personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground fulfillment centers.
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"Real American," Wal-Mart's low prices come at a high price for not only employees and their families but also many, many small businesses whose interests I'm sure you champion. Because Wal-Mart is, well, Wal-Mart, they can exact a price from their suppliers which makes a profit margin very difficult. But everyone wants to be carried in Wal-Mart so businesses make the concessions. Some businesses cannot do so however and thus cannot sell their wares to Wal-Mart customers. Does this mean their product is overpriced? Not in all cases. Does this mean their employees are lazy and overpaid? Certainly not. And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. Wal-Mart has also been known to hurt small businesses in areas where they have opened. This may not apply to Chatham as there are likely not many businesses there as is. However... an alternative to Wal-Mart was possible. Mick Dumke wrote about it here at the Reader. I've no time to look for the link, but basically other retailers were not even asked.
"However... an alternative to Wal-Mart was possible. Mick Dumke wrote about it here at the Reader."
I'm not sure what you are talking about. You probably are referring to this: http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archi…
If so, that wasn't Mick Dumke. And it did not come anywhere remotely close to establishing that an alternative was possible. All it did, in my opinion, was show that those who are competing with Wal-Mart (and would very much like it to be kept out of the city as much as possible) are likely to avoid speaking completely candidly if it might help them block the competition from being able to open. Big deal.
"Because Wal-Mart is, well, Wal-Mart, they can exact a price from their suppliers which makes a profit margin very difficult. But everyone wants to be carried in Wal-Mart so businesses make the concessions. Some businesses cannot do so however and thus cannot sell their wares to Wal-Mart customers."
We could spend a good deal of time discussing the positives and negatives of that. But it doesn't really matter. Chicago is not self-sustaining island that produces and sells all goods within its borders. Whether Wal-Mart was allowed to build additional stores within the city wasn't going to affect the dynamics of the global supply chain. Chicago is a tiny sliver of the world. If one wanted to have a debate over whether public policy should prevent Wal-Mart from using too much of its clout with its suppliers (I would argue against that since I think the end result of Wal-Mart's insistence on efficiency are better products and lower prices. And it is not as if there are not plenty of other retailers that manufacturers can sell to if Wal-Mart pushes to hard for something.) the time for that is long past. And this debate would have only mattered at the national level.
The way Walmart operates when there is local competition is to low price them out of business. They have run stores at a loss for years to drive competition under and because of the low price they demand of many suppliers they are forced to either move their work overseas or go out of business. I suppose in these troubled times any job is better than no job but only by strengthening small to mid size business will we ever gain a foothold back to better economic times. Large multinational corporations have no stake to the communities they are placed in and for those areas that rely on them to employ large numbers of their residents devastation often follows when they decide to relocate to cheaper or more profitable regions. Unfortunately its just a race to the bottom for companies like Walmart and the once middle class are the ones paying the price.
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