Brookins vows to 'hound' until city gets second Wal-Mart
Ald. Howard Brookins (21st) has vowed to “hound” Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) until Burke holds a hearing that could pave the way for Chicago’s second Wal-Mart — and first super-center that sells groceries.
At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Brookins made good on that threat — literally. He placed a stuffed animal of a hound right in front of Burke’s front-and-center seat in the City Council chambers.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
Chicago’s most powerful alderman was hardly hounded into submission.
“Not after 40 years,” he joked. “Woof, woof.”
Turning serious, Burke encouraged the world’s largest retailer to get together with union leaders and hammer out a “living wage” compromise.
“They could open 14 stores here in Chicago if they would come to some kind of peaceful agreement with organized labor,” he said. “If they indeed are asserting that they’re paying at least as much to their service workers as the Jewel and Dominicks chains do, there should be a format within which a written agreement can exist.”
Burke noted that Wal-Mart recently entered into a prevailing wage agreement in New Jersey.
“Perhaps they are coming closer to recognizing that this is a labor-oriented city and organized labor has to be respected,” he said.
The City Council’s 2004 vote to approve Wal-Mart’s first and only store in Austin gave birth to the big-box minimum-wage ordinance snuffed out by Daley’s first and only veto.
Now that Mayor Daley’s Olympic dream has gone up in flames, Brookins wants the Finance Committee to approve an amended redevelopment agreement that would pave the way for a Wal-Mart super-center at a former Chatham industrial site at 83rd and Stewart.