{"id":8043,"date":"2006-07-27T09:40:34","date_gmt":"2006-07-27T13:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8043.html"},"modified":"2006-07-27T09:40:34","modified_gmt":"2006-07-27T13:40:34","slug":"big-box-store-employees-to-get-raises-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/big-box-store-employees-to-get-raises-in-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Big Box’ store employees to get raises in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

The growing “[tag]living wage[\/tag]” movement, championed by unions and groups representing the working poor, scored a pretty significant victory<\/a> yesterday in [tag]Chicago[\/tag].<\/p>\n

After months of fevered lobbying and bitter debate, the Chicago City Council passed a groundbreaking ordinance yesterday requiring “big box” stores, like [tag]Wal-Mart[\/tag] and Home Depot, to pay a [tag]minimum wage[\/tag] of $10 an hour by 2010, along with at least $3 an hour worth of benefits.<\/p>\n

The ordinance, imposing the requirement on stores that occupy more than 90,000 square feet and are part of companies grossing more than $1 billion annually, would be the first in the country to single out large retailers for wage rules.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wal-Mart, of course, said this kind compensation is both unreasonable and unfeasible. In response, proponents of the increased wage noted that Costco, a Wal-Mart competitor, already<\/i> pays at least $10 an hour plus benefits to starting workers around the country.<\/p>\n

The “Big Box” stores also predictably complained that they won’t be able to afford the increased wages and will probably exclude Chicago in future plans. Except no one’s buying that either. As NYU’s Annette Bernhardt, which helped draft the Chicago bill and has done economic studies of its likely impact, said, “We’re very confident that retailers want and need to be in Chicago, and the question for the city is what kinds of jobs they will bring.”<\/p>\n

And best of all, there’s the possibility of the Chicago proposal spreading to other cities.
\n<\/p>\n

“This is a great day for the working men and women of Chicago,” said Alderman Joseph A. Moore, the measure’s chief sponsor. Mr. Moore said he had had inquiries about the ordinance from officials in several other cities<\/b>. (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Republicans in Congress can block a minimum-wage increase for nine years, but we’re finally seeing progress despite lawmakers’ obstinacy. As the Times noted<\/a>, San Francisco, DC, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe have already implemented across-the-board minimum wage ordinances for all but the smallest businesses. Other cities are prepared to follow suit.<\/p>\n

And what about those cities that already raised wages on large retailers? Did the move force Wal-Mart and others to close their doors? As the Times article concluded, “San Francisco and Santa Fe have set [wage] levels near that in the Chicago bill without driving out retailers.”<\/p>\n

Surprise, surprise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The growing “[tag]living wage[\/tag]” movement, championed by unions and groups representing the working poor, scored a pretty significant victory yesterday in [tag]Chicago[\/tag]. After months of fevered lobbying and bitter debate, the Chicago City Council passed a groundbreaking ordinance yesterday requiring “big box” stores, like [tag]Wal-Mart[\/tag] and Home Depot, to pay a [tag]minimum wage[\/tag] of $10 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}