The French-like legillators want to be in charge in Chicago and Connecticut.
The taxes and fees are so exhorbitant in Chicago and surrounding areas I can't imagine big businesses would want to go there to begin with.
DU is saying F'Em,let them Close..........
Competition's great, - except in the labor market.
The same liberals who complain about Microsoft's "monopoly" want competition in all other areas -- but not in the labor sector.
Prices - and wages - reflect demand, skills, and ability.
Get over it!
If you want a higher wage, invest in more skills.
Aside from the obvious Socialist implications, the whole idea of a "living wage" is stupid anyway. What is a living wage for one person may not be for another. Which means that it's still "not enough" and they raise it again...and again...and again...and pretty soon, unemployment is 22% and a gallon of milk costs $21.75.
Tens of thousands of jobs gone because of stupid labor laws "requiring" a certain wage level. The law itself insures that rate is now zero when those jobs go away.
Didn't Chicago stop Wal-Mart a few years ago from building in a certain area so they built just outside the city in some neighboorhood? As I recall, they had about 300-350 job openings at the store over 3,000 showed up to apply even at those "low wages".
Liberals are so stupid they are lucky breathing is involuntary.
Soon all business will be evil, even the local mom and pop store that's been around for the past 40 years.
Could they spin off some kind of franchise operation, keeping the same supply chain but separated from the parent company for sales figures?
FYI:
I was just in New Orleans.
McDonalds there is paying $10 per hour, plus a $5000 HIRING BONUS (no typo) for starting workers.
The problem is that the workers are in the wrong places.
Quick math. If a company has over $1 billion in sales, and they have a profit of, lets say 10%, that would be $100 million. If that company has 1000 employees making $3.50 an hour more than they would normally, plus another $3.00 per our for insurance, thats $6.50 an hour per person, or $6,500 per hour for the entire Chicago market. Multiply that by 2000 hours worked in the year, and that comes out to $13 million a year in added labor costs.
These numbers would be based on about 4 stores hiring 1000 people.
Things to look at.
1: The $1 billion dollar sales figure Chicago is using, is a national sales number. So the $100 million dollar profit number I used, is also a national number.
2: What are the sales numbers for the area stores? If the hypothetical 4 stores each had $20 million in sales, with a 10% profit margin, based on normal labor costs, that would be a profit of $8 million. Subtract $13 million from $8 million, and you have A LOSS OF $5 MILLION a year for doing business in Chicago.
3: How much does it cost to even open 1 store in the Chicago area? Lets say the land costs $1 million dollars. (Probably quite low, for the size of the lot needed, in the type of area required for a store of this type). Add to that another $1 million to build the store. And now add what, another $6 million dollars in merchandise, just to open the doors?
4: Theft. What about theft? I've heard on the news here, of how the major food stores have closed stores in certain neighborhoods, because of theft problems.
5: Back to the national sales number vs. local sales. Imagine if all cities or states required this of Walmart, then Walmart would have no profit anywhere, to syphon off to pay Chicago employees. In other words, Walmart and its investors (big AND small investors) would be bankrupt. And $1.6 million people would be out of jobs.
Stats:
According to an independently-certified study, Wal-Mart saves the average American household more than $2,300 per year.
At a recent store opening in Evergreen Park, Illinois, more than 25,000 people applied for 325 available jobs!
11,000 apply for 400 openings at retailer's new Oakland store
Wal-Mart employs 1.8 million associates worldwide, including 1.3 million in the United States.
Wal-Mart donated more than $245 million to charitable organizations last year, the majority of which was given at the local level.
Mark for later
Silly Chicago folks... You want your town to look like Detriot in ten years flat? You want your city limits to define urban blight, like 8-mile Road? You must know that places like Circuit City are naturally suburban by nature anyway; If you pass such a law, all the welfare (excuse me, SSI folks these days) will have to travel to the suburbs to buy their plasma TVs!
Seriously, I'm not as rabidly anti-minimum wage as some conservatives. I don't believe, for instance, as was argued in Massachusetts a few years ago, that people would travel out of state to pay 79 cents for a burger instead of 89 cents. But $13 an hour wages and benefits? You ain't talking flipping burgers and fries! You're talking serious money. I do think people will travel out of the city to pay $79 for a CD player instead of $89.
There is not one sane person in the U.S. who does not understand that some jobs should not be worth as much as other jobs. Unfortunately (like in my old home town of La Crosse, Wisconsin which recently passed such a stupid law) the insane get elected to the office of mayor and other city offices. Who can be dumb enough to believe that someone working part-time should get a "living wage"? Only economics-challenged libs are stupid enough to enact these crazy laws.
Any way plenty of illegals happy to work for next to nothing.
However, I suppose there's no federal anti-discrimination laws applicable to this situation (wages calculated and then mandated by over/under a certain store's income).
I don't know what legal remedies the retailers have. Are there any laws at all to protect American businesses from mandatory price-setting and thuggish extortion as practiced by big-city union-controlled councils and boards?
There seems to be a reason the big boxes haven't fought this all the way to the Supreme Court on one constitutional principle or another.
Wonder why not.
Do they prefer to cut and run?
Leni
IMHO, this looks like something that could very easily be a legitimate interstate commerce issue, under the original intent of the commerce clause. Too bad Congress and the USSC have forgotten what that was.
It is insane to mandate such things, the market will take care of it. For example, here in California, McDonald's is offering NEW HIRES $10/hr for full time employees after their 90 day training period. They also get benefits. Raising the minimum will only increase the cost of part time employees.
However, what most people fail to realize it that a good majority of big time union wages are based on the minimum wage. Thus, a raise in the minimum wage also increases union salaries for trained/skilled workers. This is why the unions, and therefore the politicians they finance, are on board with all of the nonsense.
It's not just going to increase the cost of your burger. It will increase the cost of your car, your groceries, new construction, and health care, just to name a few.