CHICAGO — A battle is looming in the Chicago City Council over two proposed Wal-Mart "supercenter" stores, just after activists went 1-for-2 in California votes against the anti-worker retail behemoth.
But there's an unusual twist in Chicago, too: The pressure on the giant anti-union retailer forced its Midwestern regional director to at least sit down and talk with two top union officials about a corporate code of conduct plan.
In both Chicago and California, labor and the community mobilized against the retail giant's supercenters, which they said would drive local firms out of business and whose rock-bottom wages and lack of benefits would drive local living standards down.
In each California case, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer countered with million-dollar-plus publicity designed to show Wal-Mart's low prices were supposedly good and that it would create jobs.
In the most recent vote, on April 6, Wal-Mart lost in the low-income, high-unemployment Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, after a labor-led campaign pointed out that its low-wage no-benefit jobs would actually hurt the community. Wal-Mart won, however, in a March vote in Contra Costa County near San Francisco, overturning a local anti-"big box" law.
In Chicago, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 881 mobilized community, labor, religious and civic support against the destructive impact of the superstores, local spokeswoman Elizabeth Drake says.
The city council zoning committee threw several roadblocks in front of Wal-Mart's planned West Side superstore, with another panel meeting scheduled for April 20.
Meanwhile, a South Side alderman, without the panel's knowledge, pushed through a retail plaza proposal--without telling anyone Wal-Mart would benefit through another superstore. The uproar has forced him to temporarily retreat.
Like Inglewood, both Chicago Wal-Mart "supercenters"--the so-called "big boxes"--would be in predominantly minority areas.
As a result of the pressure and publicity in Chicago, Wal-Mart's Midwestern director talked with presidents of both Local 881 and the Chicago Federation of Labor about a proposed corporate responsibility contract. That's a first, Drake adds.
"The groups have finalized a community benefits agreement" for Wal-Mart to sign, Drake explained. The pact would commit the firm "not to do things they have done elsewhere," such as rock-bottom wages with skimpy and unaffordable health benefits.
Wal-Mart's low wages and benefits have prompted a national UFCW organizing drive in its stores--and also pushed other retail grocers to compete by driving their union workers down.
"Hopefully, if Wal-Mart signs, this would make Chicago first on the map for Wal-Mart to be a responsible corporate citizen and not compete" on the basis of harming workers and communities, Drake said.
Posted by UFCW 227 at April 19, 2004 06:37 PM