Chain stores, mayor conspire to veto living wage

On July 26 the Chicago City Council voted 35 to 14 to require a living wage and health benefits for workers at large “big box” chain stores like Target and Wal-Mart.

This was a big victory for the coalition of unions and community groups that campaigned for the bill for two years, and for the people of Chicago. In a poll taken in June, 84 percent of Chicago voters—and 90 percent of Black and Latin@ people—supported the bill.

The retail industry, however, has been pushing for a “do-over” ever since, and this week they got what they paid for. On Sept. 11, Democratic mayor Richard Daley Jr. vetoed the “big box” ordinance.

Two days later, a 31 to 18 majority voted to override the veto, but it would have taken at least 33 votes to be successful. This failure to override Daley resulted in three council members switching sides under a barrage of economic and political intimidation. One council member was not present during this vote.

The Target and Wal-Mart chains had both announced they were stopping construction projects in the poorest areas of the city until the vote was overturned. Hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans received phone calls warning that the ordinance spelled “economic ruin” for the oppressed communities.

Daley, one of the most influential U.S. politicians, could in theory have condemned this economic extortion and interference in the democratic process by the giant retail chains. Instead, he acted as the commander of their political forces.

Daley supporters in the Black community—some politicians, developers and ministers—participated in the anti-ordinance campaign. The Woodlawn Organi zation, once an activist group but now a real estate developer and Daley ally which has been criticized for its collaboration with gentrification plans of the University of Chicago, organized against the ordinance.

A full-page ad in the Sept. 8 Chicago Defender newspaper, signed by 126 Black ministers and “with financial support from the Illinois Retail Merchants Associ ation,” “implored” Daley to veto the ordinance.

On Sept. 12, surrounded by Black supporters assembled by the Woodlawn Organization, Daley charged that the living wage ordinance was a “racist” conspiracy by white-led unions for the purpose of stopping development in the Black community, while allowing “big box” development to go on unimpeded in white suburban areas.

Daley went on to say, “Not one person objected to any type of store in the suburban area. Only on the West Side. Only on the South Side. When we talk about economic development in the Black community, [they say] there’s something wrong there. [They say] development belongs in the suburban area.”

But in fact, the movement for a living wage at “big box” stores to be built in the Black community came largely from within that community.

Black organizers like Rev. Robin Hood and UFCW member Toni Foulkes, both of ACORN, and Elce Redmond of the South Austin Coalition Community Council, had been organizing support for the ordinance.

“Some people say any job is better than no job. But slavery was full employment,” Redmond told the Chicago Tribune. Alderman Ed Smith told the Sun-Times, “We want the companies, but we want them to come in with integrity and dignity. Companies ought to be able to pay people a decent wage for the work they do.”

Daley’s self-appointed role as defender of the Black community against racism must have seemed bizarre and insulting to those organizing to protest his role in covering up the police torture of African-American prisoners, or who saw how his white cronies raked in city contracts by establishing fake “minority-owned” businesses.

Black councilmember Shirley Coleman, who voted for the ordinance in July, said she switched her vote because Wal-Mart promised her it would build a store in her ward. But after the vote, David Tovar of Wal-Mart said, “We haven’t made any commitments to anyone.”

Even under intense pressure, nine out of the 17 Black council members and five out of seven Latin@s voted to overturn Daley’s veto. Other Black leaders supporting the progressive ordinance included Congress members Danny Davis and Jesse Jackson Jr. and mayoral candidate Bill “Dock” Walls.

“It was a fight Wal-Mart needed to win,” said a report in the Chicago Tribune’s business section, because it is fighting to expand into Chicago and other northern cities, and it wants to expand on its own terms.

Analysis had shown that the stores could have easily paid the additional wages and benefits, amounting to 2 cents on a dollar on sales at most. Their threats to pull out of Chicago were entirely political in nature.

Wal-Mart set back the momentum of the living wage movement nationally to show that it can force politicians to guarantee cheap labor, cheap land, rezoning and huge tax breaks. Corporate interests financed this anti-ordinance campaign in order to pit the oppressed communities against organized labor.

However, the battle is not over. Living wage supporters have introduced a bill calling for an advisory referendum on the issue during city elections in February 2007.