|
|
With more than 3,000 stores and super centers in the country and more than 1.5 million employees worldwide, there is no denying that Wal-Mart, which wants to build a 135,000-square-foot store in Rego Park, Queens, is a Wall Street darling and a rip-roaring success story.
More and more, however, people are beginning to see that Wal-Mart's incredible expansion is only one side of a more complicated story. The other side of the narrative finds Main Street shopping areas closed all over the country. It finds regional supermarket chains, along with their well-compensated union workers, put out of business.
It gets worse. Recently, a multibillion sexual discrimination lawsuit was filed against the company. In other legal actions, workers say they have been forced to continue working even after they've punched out for the day.
Wal-Mart calls New York City its "next retail frontier." What hogwash! There are more than 400 culturally unique Main Streets in New York City, economic incubators for thousands of new immigrants who have come to this country. These storeowners are a New York treasure that needs to be nurtured, not destroyed by a retail octopus whose expansion appears unfettered and is nothing less than promiscuous.
All New Yorkers love a bargain. Wal-Mart doesn't tell you that this apparent bargain comes at a steep price. The price, called "creative destruction" by its cheerleaders, is manifested in the loss of neighborhood stores and the erosion of the rich character of local communities. It is seen in the replacement of unionized workers with a lower paid workforce.
It is, finally, a price that is paid by the tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs lost to outsourcing because of Wal-Mart's rapacious cost-cutting.
When it comes to Wal-Mart, New York City needs to exercise extreme caution. Proponents of the store say that elected officials have no business telling New Yorkers where they can or cannot shop. In this, they are dead wrong. As a result of city zoning laws there are few, if any, locations where Wal-Mart can build without a thorough land use review. This means that the mega-retailer must convince local residents and elected officials that the store's benefits outweigh its costs.
We think that once the people are informed about Wal-Mart's corporate behavior and the store's negative impact on communities, they will join with organized labor and New York City's 185,000 mom-and-pop retailers in saying no.
In this city, the costs of a Wal-Mart far outweigh the benefits.
Danio is vice president of United Food and Commercial Workers, Region 1, and Kim is president of the New York based Small Business Congress, Inc.