Big-box measure returns to Chicago City Council
The bitter battle that gave birth to the big-box minimum-wage ordinance that was snuffed out by Mayor Daley's only veto returned to the City Council today.
It happened when Ald. Howard Brookins (21st), business and community leaders turned up the heat on aldermen to give Wal-Mart the go-ahead to build its second Chicago store -- and first super-center that sells groceries -- at a former Chatham industrial site at 83rd and Stewart.
With the city facing a $300 million budget shortfall and unemployment among African Americans topping 20 percent, Brookins said it makes no sense to block a $64 million project that would create 600 full- and part-time jobs.
Daley has said Brookins' request "is not gonna fly" because Wal-Mart backers "don't have enough votes." The mayor is reluctant to pick a fight with organized labor before the International Olympic Committee's Oct. 2 vote on a host city for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
But Brookins said, "We can't wait for the Olympics. People are dying now.
People are starving now. People are in stores now. There is no convenient time. There's never gonna be a perfect time. If we cannot stand up for the people in the worst economic downturn since the Depression, when can we stand up for people?" Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon told the Chicago Sun-Times last week that City Council approval of a second Chicago Wal-Mart would complicate negotiations aimed at crafting a package of union concessions needed to avert 1,504 city layoffs scheduled to take effect July 15.
"How in the world could they bring that up in the middle of what we're trying to do?" Gannon said of the union givebacks.
Brookins countered that union members are being forced to choose between a pink slip and a 20 percent pay cut, in part, because Chicagoans have spent $500 million at suburban Wal-Marts.
"This fight is about how we intend to put our finger in the dike and stop the leaking of revenues going outside the city of Chicago," he said.
Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper said it's time that organized labor and its City Council allies lift the brick on the world's largest retailer.
"It is our community. It is our choice," Roper said. "There needs to be a sense of urgency. This needs to happen now to reduce 10.7 [citywide] unemployment, to reduce the food-deserts, to get people back to work, to make families feel whole again. It's very demoralizing to lose your job." Last year, then-Planning and Development Commissioner Arnold Randall rejected Wal-Mart's request for administrative approval to build a 150,000 sq.ft. super-center on the site of the old Ryerson Steel plant.
The mayor was so concerned about maintaining the delicate labor peace he brokered to bolster Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid, he was apparently willing to single out Wal-Mart for special treatment -- and let jobs, tax revenue and shopping choices go to the suburbs.
Brookins' ammended redevelopment agreement would strip the commissioner of the power to veto stores over 100,000 sq.ft. That would pave the way for construction to begin.
In 2004, a bitterly divided Council handed Wal-Mart a split decision: zoning approval to build its first Chicago store in the West Side's Austin community and a one-vote defeat in Chatham.
The City Council subsequently re-zoned the Chatham site for a shopping mall on the promise that Wal-Mart would not be part of the project.
Brookins' decision to put the City Council back on the hot seat with labor unions doing battle with Wal-Mart over wages and benefits did not sit well with some of his colleagues.
"This is a nightmare for all of us. It re-opens old wounds," Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), a candidate for Cook County Board president against incumbent Todd Stroger, told the Sun-Times recently.