Wal-Mart Stalled Again

The Chicago City Council postponed a vote on zoning changes that would have allowed Wal-Mart Stores (Bentonville, Ark.) to open its first two stores in the nation’s third-largest city.

The non-vote of approval came less than a month after voters in Inglewood, Calif., rejected the retailer’s effort to build a store there.

The Chicago effort is seen by some as a major test of whether organized labor, which is relatively strong in this city as in most, can block or obstruct the company’s plans to continue expanding into big cities.

“It would be nice to have seen the proposal go through and be voted on today,” said John Bisio, a Wal-Mart spokesman, “but this just gives us the opportunity to engage people and go back and dispel a lot of the misinformation that’s out there.”

The dispute has pitted some of the city’s most prominent politicians, clergymen and civic leaders against each other. Both sides brought busloads of people to City Hall for the council meeting, and there were boisterous demonstrations in the corridors and on nearby streets.

Supporters of Wal-Mart’s expansion plans here say the company offers both badly needed jobs and rock-bottom prices. They said they were disappointed by the council vote, but still expected it to approve the zoning changes at its next meeting on May 26. Individual aldermen are able to block a vote on such changes once, but under council rules a roll-call vote must be taken at the next meeting.

Opponents vowed, however, to intensify their campaign against the giant retailer, which they say crushes small businesses and lowers labor standards by paying low wages, offering minimal benefits and opposing efforts by its employees to unionize.

The retailer does claim support among the city aldermen who represent the poor and mainly African-American neighborhoods in Chicago where Wal-Mart wants to build the stores. They say the neighborhoods, on the South Side and West Side, are desperate for the estimated total of 600 jobs Wal-Mart will bring.

The City Council usually defers to the wishes of local aldermen on zoning matters, but the Wal-Mart proposal has stirred such controversy that the Council set aside that tradition on Wednesday. “This is certainly not a local issue for one ward or for Chicago,” said William Banks, an alderman who voted against the plan. “It’s a nationwide issue, and it’s not going to go away anytime soon. People are looking for a quick fix in areas where economic development is very poor, but down the line they’ll see that along with that quick fix come a lot of problems.”

Labor unions are stronger and more combative in Chicago than in most places where Wal-Mart has opened outlets. Seeking to counter their influence, Wal-Mart has hired a formidable team of local public relations and legal consultants, including the law firm of Michael Daley, brother of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley.

The spokesman said that Wal-Mart was not anti-union, and that “the reason our associates haven’t wanted third-party representation is because they have faith in the company, and it provides them with tremendous opportunity.”