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Some people may be confused, since everything they heard had the big box wage plan being about that bad ol’ low-brow, working class favorite WalMart and not (gasp!) the middle-brow shopping class’ beloved Target.
Chicago’s controversial big- box ordinance has produced its first casualty: Target has pulled out of a 32-acre shopping mall at 119th and Marshfield and will likely cut and run from the North Side’s Wilson Yards project as well, city officials said Wednesday.Target’s decision to follow through on its threat to avoid Chicago comes just one week after a bitterly divided City Council defied Daley by requiring retailing giants to pay their employees a “living wage” of at least $10 an hour and $3 in benefits by 2010. […]
[Ald. Carrie[ Austin was one of only 15 aldermen to vote against the big-box ordinance. She was devastated, but not surprised, when the letter arrived from Target. “My colleagues are saying, ‘Don’t worry. They’ll come.’ Well, mine just left,” Austin said. […]
On Wednesday, Daley was still holding his veto cards close to the vest. The mayor must decide by the next regularly scheduled City Council meeting on Sept. 13 whether to sign or veto the ordinance. To avoid an override, he would have to convince two aldermen to change sides.
From what I’ve been told, the big retailers have been freaked out by this ordinance and want to use Chicago to send a warning to everyone else who might contemplate legislation like this.
In the long term the ordinance may or may not make much difference, whether or not it survives a veto or a court challenge. In the short term, it’s gonna be a very hot, well publicized fight on both sides.
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 6:25 am
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Those big boxes like to bluff. This is a bluff. Not like the could build at, oh say 16 blocks to the west in Merrionette Park and be free from Chicago’s hevay hand.
The big boxes are always bluffing. They are drooling over profit. Wait and see.
Comment by Garza Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 7:26 am
Good job Target, or should I say no JOBS Chicago. I hope the rest follow and leave Chicago. This is a horriable idea. The Government needs to stay out of business. Now I hope the companies decide to help fund candidates against those that vote for it. Let’s complete the circle.
Comment by The Conservative Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 8:07 am
I am more interested in seeing whether mayor Daley has the “testicular virility” that is necessary to truly lead a great city like Chicago by not being afraid to stand up to the advocates for Big Box Diplomacy. Is Mayor Daley a “Girlie-Man” (as Arnold would say) and afraid of using his veto power? Or, will The Mayor have the courage of his convictions and do what he feels is in the best interests of his city of Chicago?
Will the real Mayor Richard Daley, please stand up? Or, is Daley simply a “bit player” who many people have mistakenly thought was running the city of Chicago when, in fact, others were actually pulling his strings and moving his lips over these past few years?
Comment by Beowulf Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 8:29 am
The big boxes need to get into the cities. But they don’t live or die based on whether they get into CHICAGO. I think some liberals are missing that point. Our ordinance now politically requires the big boxes to stay away from here, at least for a few years, because if they came right here that would provide a huge boost to living wage campaigns in other cities. Eventually the boxes will turn back to Chicago … but in the short run, they’ll concentrate on winning battles elsewhere, and try and make an example of us.
So with further reflection, I find it hard to believe this living wage ordinance is a net plus for Chicago. The best argument I can make for it is actually a _national_ argument. Weird as it may sound, one of organized labor’s goals is to make WalMart an _ally_ in its push for the federal government to assume a greater role in the provision of health care. Atlantic Monthly did a nice piece on this not long ago. The thinking goes like this: WalMart, like many businesses, is beginning to financially choke on the cost of providing health care to its workers. But the more WalMart cuts health care, or refuses to obey ordinances like the one Chicago passes, the more negative PR / backlash it receives. Ultimately, so labor’s plan goes, WalMart will realize it’s fighting a losing game and will turn its considerable lobbying force to the feds to push for a national solution to health care. When organized labor _and_ WalMart are lobbying for a federal role in health care, something may happen.
Labor may hope that ordinances like the one in Chicago will only keep pressuring WalMart to move toward this national role. The message sent is: “Unless the feds do something about health care, cities like Chicago are only going to keep moving in this direction, and you need cities to expand.” So this local living wage ordinance may actually be good for the country. Chicago may have performed a great service for liberals nationwide.
But I find it hard to believe it’s gonna work to the benefit of Chicago, at least not for a while.
Comment by ZC Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 8:59 am
Target has approximately 1,350 stores, please do not think that they are going to allow themselves to be jerked around by local governments.
Liberals just don’t understand business - remember the wonderful ‘luxury tax’ that had to be repealed because it cost 150,000 boat-building (union) jobs (because the ‘rich’ decided that they did not need to buy new boats and pay more taxes).
Wonderful job again by the liberals in Chicago…by trying to protect their union base, they cost union people construction jobs.
When will liberals learn to think beyond what the special interest unions tell them to do?
Comment by havinfun Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 9:42 am
Boo, Hoo for the Big Boxes.
If it’s too much to ask them to take better care of their employees, then good riddance. I for one will be more than happy to spend my money somewhere else.
Comment by 'The Gay Governor' Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 9:46 am
Last week, Walmart pulled out of Germany. Germany, like most of Western Europe have stagnated their economies over the past ten years due to stupid social government laws. They have made it too difficult to be there, so Walmart gave up and left. Everyone said that they wouldn’t leave - but they did. Walmart even took a huge loss making that decision.
The big box stores don’t need Chicago, but Chicagoans need them. Those people politicians are pretending to help with their wage demands, are forced to pay 20% more for food and goods with this stupid law in place. When Walmart, Target, and Lowes ring Chicago with their stores, Chicagoans will drive out to buy from them. Not having the latest stores with the lowest prices will be just another big reason to leave Chicago.
You cannot stop change by outlawing it. If Chicago will not let big box stores in, then it can become another Detroit, which still has NO department stores in it’s city limits.
Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 9:49 am
we must win this fight now against big box stores, how much of a social cost do we want to continue to pay?
Comment by moderate - half way between crazy and crazy. Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 10:29 am
No jobs, but better pay. Joe Moore you’ve done it again! Another progressive victory; I can not order gooseliver I can not afford! The People win again! I’m giddy with delight - now for some laughs from Mara Liason and folksy motjuist from Tavis Smiley. I’m havin’ brown rice and tofuntti icecream! That settles it. . . . Where’s my inhaler?
Comment by Pat Hickey Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 10:34 am
It might scare some of you people who don’t care about working people in this country but the fight is on, and will be won, for a living wage and benifits.
Sooner or later Walmart and others wont be able to run away from paying their workers a living wage. But dont fear my corporate friends, the Waltons will still be able to afford sending their children to college.
Comment by HANKSTER Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 10:38 am
Hanskster, the story above was about Target. What about Target? Same goes for everyone else who want to talk about WalMart today. What about Target?
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 10:42 am
“Sooner or later Walmart AND OTHERS” I consider Target to be an other.
Comment by HANKSTER Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 10:54 am
These greedy retailers and their cheap crap imported from impoverished nations exploiting the low cost labor so they can sell Americans crap. If they could get away with it they would be paying $1.00 per hour like they do in China. I hope they follow the lead of Zayre and Venture and go down the tubes.
Comment by Garp Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 11:06 am
The story is about Target, but why stop at retailing giants? This same concept should be equally applied to any other large organization including hospitals, universities/school systems, museums, ball fields/stadiums, factories, hotels, warehouses, offices, insurance, banks, and any company whose multi site total sq ft is high. They do not have sales of $1B a year you say? Is the salary for anyone working there less important than people working at Target? The vote does not seem very well thought out for the long run ripple effect.
Comment by zatoichi Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 11:10 am
Was Wal-Mart bluffing when the built in Evergreen Park instead of Chicago. These are S&P 100 companies that are driven by profit motive. Cook County already offers devastating tax rates, now Chicago is adding pay demands.
It is likely that Chicago will be surrounded by large corporations. Its not a long drive to the suburbs from any part of the city.
Joe Moore seems to be well intentioned, but is pretty arrogant about playing with southside jobs. In areas of poverty, you need a wage, much less worrying about a living wage.
This is especially difficult since there is enormous supply-side pressure in labor from illegal immigrants. Most equilibrium problems need to work themselves out over time. Legislation just exacerbates them.
Ashur Odishoo
Candidate
State Representative 11th District
Comment by Ashur Odishoo Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 11:20 am
Add this to the estimated $1.4 billion employers may be asked to pay to insure the uninsured in Illinois (Crains - Biz Picks Up Doctor’s Bill: July 31, 2006), I am sure employers will flock to Chicago and gladly pay even more.
Comment by Ben Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 11:25 am
Capitalism wins again…Instead of the city council addressing real problems, they are on these little crusades to drive business to the suburbs…if they really cared about the working man they’d take a 50% pay cut as a sign of goodwill…but we all know that won’t happen…They are too busy lining their own pockets with labor union money to actually care what goes on within their wards.
Comment by ISU REP Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 11:41 am
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
Franklin Roosevelt
Comment by HANKSTER Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 12:08 pm
For sure, there will be fallout in terms of the Chicago retail scene, but I’m not convinced that, say, a Certified grocery store or some of the other bargain retailers in the city aren’t “close enough” in terms of their pricing to make the difference to the average bargain shopping family significant. We should keep in mind that this is all consumption - bickering over our right to consume children’s toys at a discount compared to challenging businesses to cooperate with government and citizens in trying to provide the highest standard of living for as many people as possible - is not, to me, a contest. Target’s most popular products are children’s clothing, decorative home fashions, small houswares and appliances and toys, according to one retail study I found online (published by Retail Forward, Inc.). So, noone’s taking food out of anyone’s mouth if Target waits to build here. Children’s clothing is MUCH cheaper secondhand, so I’m really not sure what the long-term impact is to families, except that the stores that are here are probably going to stay here. How many employees will get this pay raise and these medical benefits? It seems like the net economic effect is positive and the cost politically is minor.
As for Wal-mart, I just don’t know enough - and there’s not enough good reporting on this - to determine whether the NECESSITIES they sell are that much more of a bargain for a family really looking for the best deal. Beyond that, I really think the rest of the debate would sound pretty lame to someone in a country where “freedom to shop” hadn’t turned into something like a human right.
Comment by g Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 12:46 pm
Target is the best managed big box company. They know from where to locate. Like them all, they locate on demographics — ten mile circle, and then decide where the best tax and wage conditions are.
Merioette park would love to have them. 100K sq.ft. would bring them $400K in sales taxes. That’s worth giving some concessions over. a 100K Target will also spawn at least another 100K in non affiliated stores who want to access Target’s traffic. That’s likely to be another $200K in Sales taxes. The municipality itself gets maybe 10% of the property taxes. the big lump goes to the schools. Retail stores do not generate curtain climbers older kids to go to the local school. That’s more money for the local suburban school.
Less money all around for Chicago.
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 12:46 pm
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.â€
Franklin Roosevelt
Sure hope you are not holding him up as some kind of hero. Hero to the Socialist Democrats maybe.
Comment by The Conservative Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 12:59 pm
The Conservative: The guy who saved us after the policies of your conservtive friend Hoover sent us into depression? Yes I am. Tell people who rely social security or medicare that he wasnt good. So go ahead and lets compare Roosevelt to any of your conservative presidential friends. Republcian presidents mess things up and we come in and fix them.
Comment by HANKSTER Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 1:16 pm
Mayor Daley should just say no to corporate greenmail. There is nothing inherently unreasonable about requiring these big box companies to pay a living wage. The pay scales established by the ordinance are reasonable based upon the cost of living in Chicago.
However,it is correct to make a distinction between WalMart and Target.Target is a far more desirable employer than WalMart. Absent WalMart there would have been no big box ordinance Walmart’s sleazy nationwide labor practices begat the big box living wage ordinance.
CostCo pays it employees $10 an hour and gives them health benefits and still makes money. It’s not clear to me why the other big boxes can’t do the same. The only apparent answer is corporate greed. These corporations are unwilling to share their corporate profits, in the form of a living wage, with the labor force that produces the profits.
It’s an imperfect world. There are no eacy answers. Econonmic and social justice warrant support of the big box living wage ordinance unless the courts overturn the ordinane.
Comment by Captain America Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 3:31 pm
Rich,
You say “the big retailers have been freaked out by this ordinance and want to use Chicago to send a warning to everyone else who might contemplate legislation like this.” If the retailers are coordinating their strategy, that sounds like a Sherman Antitrust Act violation.
If the retailers each, individually decide they can’t stomach the Chicago business climate, or they each, individually want to throw their own weight around to make a point about local wage ordinances, O.K. The Chicago aldermen made their bed; now the City has to sleep in it.
But if big bad Walmart proclaims that it will invest in Chicago no more, that’s a lot of self control for someone over at Target not to say “sweet, now we have the territory to ourselves.”
I hope someone over at the Federal Trade Commission is paying attention to all this.
Comment by Ivory-billed woodpecker Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 3:48 pm
I think FDR had something to do with saving the world from Hitler amoung some of his other achivements like getting the good ol USA out of the great depression. Why would anyone call him a hero? It’s one thing to be conservative and quite another to be daft.
Comment by Garp Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 3:52 pm
Can we get back to the issue at hand, please?
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 3:55 pm
I support the big box living wage ordinance, but one of the things that bothers me is that Target gets a free ride. While I believe that WalMart deserves much more criticism because of its extremely aggressive push to force suppliers to locate plants overseas, the fact is that Target (and even some of the upscale department stores on Michigan Ave.) do get a free ride on wages.
Part of the reason is that Target has — as you are suggesting — a much “cooler” corporate and brand image.
But, I’ll gladly lose “cool” Target over the living wage. Let’s hope small retailers can figure out how to fill the gap. Tif districts to develop small-scale retail shopping streets?
At any rate, I think that when we look down the road, the big box stores will figure out that they can still make money and pay a living wage. In the meantime, I’m proud that Chicago took a stand against a company that is responsible for creating many working poor people.
Comment by the Other Anonymous Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 4:45 pm
Target leaves one, maybe two sites. Let’s see who replaces them.
TIFs have been done to revitalize neighborhood downtowns, do streetcaping, aidewalk repair and replacement. parking, signalling, These don’t generate what the Big Box will. You set minirevelopment project areas for each store and use the increment from each project for each project. Everybody benefits to the extent they generate revenue. Worked in downtown Lansing. worked elsewhere. The Village has to be willing to put forth some time and money as well.
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 5:29 pm
On Target, (and this also applies to most other “Big Box” retailer), it’s as pointed out in the article - each store is indeed a profit center, and this City ordinance has the potential to eventually push their stores inside the City of Chicago down to near the bottom overall of their stores in terms of store profitability.
That’s where the real story is in all of this - if a municipality (any municipality) is going to push per store profitability standards for the stores located within their specific municipality jurisdiction down by a substantial amount, -and- knowing that this concept could spread if they just sit back and take it, well, those “Big Box” retailers simply have no choice. Can’t live with it.
If you are a business exec for the firms and think there’s even the slightest chance of this type of “Living Wage and Benefits” legislation spreading, well, you’ve got to seriously re-evaluate (and probably bail) on your expansion/business plans within the jurisdiction.
I’d personally expect nothing less, and if I was a “Big Box” shareholder and the CEO didn’t take such action, I’d be one of the people voting to replace the CEO of the company at the first opportunity.
Just as a btw, look for one of the first in a series of “Unintended Consequences” to come from this City of Chicago ordinance. Remember the “Kelo v. City of New London” SC case?
The one where:
“The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that local governments may force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted and the new project’s success is not guaranteed.
The 5 to 4 ruling provided the strong affirmation that state and local governments had sought for their increasing use of eminent domain for urban revitalization, especially in the Northeast, where many city centers have decayed and the suburban land supply is dwindling.”
Link is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062300783_pf.html
What happens if the boundary municipalities start to use Kelo to aggregate property for “Big Box” commercial development directly adjacent to the City of Chicago.
Remember, these small fry didn’t have the Kelo legal opinion at their disposal before - now they do. And better yet, they just got political cover for doing it - the “Big Boxes” are bringing market competition to the areas that don’t have much, and sales tax revenue besides. So, what’s not to like from their standpoint.
If I’m a “Big Box” site locator, I’ve already started laying the groundwork to ID all the mayors & other players on towns all around Chicago. Just getting ready for the future. Any maybe even being bold enough to send them (and their legal staff/economic development staff) summaries and copies of the Kelo decision. Just as a btw type of idea….
This one’s going to be fun.
Comment by Making The Wheels Turn Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 5:29 pm
I support the Big Box fair wage law. Hold on tight, brothers and sisters; this is now a game of poker with the big boxes, and they are bluffing big time. Not only is it illegal for them to all collude on fighting this law, their competitive nature means none of them will stay away too long, lest they lose a lucrative spot. Hold on tight, brothers and sisters, hold out for what you really deserve and not the meager scraps they want you to settle for. Read up on how the Pullman neighborhood was run when Pullman first set it up. Walmart would have that kind of world re-established in modern form. Fight it.
Comment by Gregor Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 5:53 pm
Can we put these inaccuracies to sleep?
The W-M in Evergreen was planned long before the Chicago ones were even announced. I’d heard about it before the vote that sunk the South Side Wal-Mart.
Take a walk through an “edge” Target (I’ve been to the one in Burbank) and then through one in the middle of dense urban neighborhoods (Lincoln Park, their most successful store in the country). One half-empty(ok, half-full), the other will be packed almost all day. Density and proximity means repeat trips. Burbank isn’t far from me, but I wouldn’t go every other day.
Comment by Carlos Thursday, Aug 3, 06 @ 5:58 pm