Now that the Wall Street engineered recession has workers panicked, Walmart is pushing harder to storm the barricades of urban workers. Washington, D.C. and Baltimore are likely targets, but residents are learning some of the tricks.
From The Motown Shank:
A few years ago, we were dealing with the prospect of a large development coming into our neighborhood. Shortly after it was announced, we were surprised to see unquestioning cheerleading from the members of a local board of an organization whose mission was to encourage the growth of small, independent, locally owned businesses.
Later it was discovered that the developer had spread around support seed money to select community organization leaders in the form of several thousand dollars per person.
When you’re talking multi-million dollar investments, what’s a few thousand dollars here or there? Better yet, if you can get away with paying folks a hundred bucks here or there, even better – especially for a retailer known for its supposed discount prices.
The most recent warning comes from Chicago were protesters were paid $50 a day to agitate in favor of Walmart.
From The Chicago Reader:
“Let me just first thank each and every one of the residents that are here today—I’d like to really acknowledge them,” said Ninth Ward alderman Anthony Beale, speaking in the chamber of Chicago’s City Council on Thursday, June 24. “It’s residents like this who really give me the energy and drive to fight on their behalf.”
Beale gestured toward the sea of white filling the spectators’ gallery, men and women all wearing T-shirts sporting slogans that championed the project the council’s zoning committee was about to approve: construction of a Walmart Supercenter in Pullman.
But it’s possible not everyone felt as strongly about the project as their T-shirts did. Around 7:30 that morning, about a hundred Walmart supporters had filed onto two yellow school buses in front of the 63rd and Harper headquarters of the Woodlawn Organization (TWO). A south-side fixture, this social services organization is run, at least nominally, by president Georgette Greenlee-Finney, but it’s heavily influenced by her husband, Leon Finney Jr., the City Hall insider who became TWO’s executive director in 1969. He no longer holds a formal office at TWO, but he remains chief executive officer of its sister organization, the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation, which manages projects for the Chicago Housing Authority and develops real estate throughout the south side.
Many of the TWO partisans might sincerely have desired more jobs and retail options in Pullman. But they were also motivated by the promise of $100.
No regular reader here will be surprised by the astroturfing tactics of Walmart, but as the battle for a living wage and an economic future for Americans that reaches beyond Wall Street, we can’t afford to make any assumptions.
Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.