The Real Source of Chicago's Jobs: Independent, Local Business
by Megan Wade Antieau
Wal-Mart will not bring jobs to Chicago.
Let me repeat that: Wal-Mart will not bring jobs to Chicago.
Common wisdom surely says otherwise, and such 'wisdom' is at the foundation of both Wal-Mart's current expensive PR campaign and Mayor Daley's arguments to the city council for why the retail behemoth should be allowed to operate multiple stores within the city, despite constant reports of its poor labor practices and its discrimination against women workers.
The truth, however, is that we know that big-box retailers like Wal-Mart do not create more jobs for communities. What's more, they lead to overall wage depression for those communities they enter.
The opening of a monstrous big-box can feel momentarily like a major infusion of jobs. But as they put pressure on smaller retailers, through the sheer scale of their operation, those small businesses disappear. And with them disappears not only their lower wage jobs - their cashiers and sales associates - but the critical middle-class jobs they helped support: local accountants, bookkeepers, graphic designers, soon find themselves without work, post Wal-Mart.
This rippling effect (well documented in critically-acclaimed books such as Stacy Mitchell's The Big Box Swindle), means that at the same time a new Wal-Mart lowers the total number of jobs in a community, it can also depress overall wages. We know also that major big-box outlets can in fact cost local governments more in the long run, as families who live on Wal-Mart's lack-of-benefits plan find themselves relying more on government services.
What would we really get in return from a Wal-Mart, anyhow? In exchange for an opportunity to allegedly 'pay less' for cheaply-produced consumer goods, Chicagoans would gain a major political player who has a clear track record of fighting or preventing policies that benefit workers, families, and communities.
To allow Wal-Mart to operate on a mass scale in Chicago means that Chicago workers and families lose out. They also lose out on the benefits that independent, local businesses bring to our neighborhoods. Studies have shown that independent, locally-owned businesses give, on average, 350% more to local non-profits than non-locally owned businesses, and that they recirculate a 70% more money back into their communities than do chain stores.
This means that it is independent, local businesses that keep both wealth and jobs in Chicago for Chicago families – not the Wal-Marts of the world.
Yet both Mayor Daley and the Wal-Mart PR machine would have you believe that big boxes are the only option for creating real jobs in Chicago. What they won't tell you about are the hundreds of thriving independent business alliances nationwide, working with groups like the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies to support socially responsible economic development.
They won't tell you about successful projects like the Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, which sponsors new green technology cooperatives in some of the city's most economically depressed neighborhoods. “The Cleveland Model,” as it is called, not only creates new jobs but provides worker-owners an opportunity to build real equity, while simultaneously creating sustainable infrastructure for both the city and local businesses.
They won't tell you that our options really look like this:
Option 1: We undermine our own power as citizens by giving it to a multinational corporation known for antagonizing unorganized workers and unions alike, whose business model is based on intensively using non-renewable resources like oil (surely questionable in this time of the BP disaster in the Gulf), and who regularly spends millions to fight local ordinances and regulations; or
Option 2: We choose, as a city, to invest in helping start community-based and environmentally sustainable, independent businesses, who can help keep real wages and real wealth in our Chicago neighborhoods for the long-term.
The choice is clear: independent, local business is the way to build long-lasting, high-paying jobs in Chicago.
Megan Wade Antieau serves on the board of Local First Chicago, the city's network for independent, local businesses.
by Megan Wade Antieau
Wal-Mart will not bring jobs to Chicago.
Let me repeat that: Wal-Mart will not bring jobs to Chicago.
Common wisdom surely says otherwise, and such 'wisdom' is at the foundation of both Wal-Mart's current expensive PR campaign and Mayor Daley's arguments to the city council for why the retail behemoth should be allowed to operate multiple stores within the city, despite constant reports of its poor labor practices and its discrimination against women workers.
The truth, however, is that we know that big-box retailers like Wal-Mart do not create more jobs for communities. What's more, they lead to overall wage depression for those communities they enter.
The opening of a monstrous big-box can feel momentarily like a major infusion of jobs. But as they put pressure on smaller retailers, through the sheer scale of their operation, those small businesses disappear. And with them disappears not only their lower wage jobs - their cashiers and sales associates - but the critical middle-class jobs they helped support: local accountants, bookkeepers, graphic designers, soon find themselves without work, post Wal-Mart.
This rippling effect (well documented in critically-acclaimed books such as Stacy Mitchell's The Big Box Swindle), means that at the same time a new Wal-Mart lowers the total number of jobs in a community, it can also depress overall wages. We know also that major big-box outlets can in fact cost local governments more in the long run, as families who live on Wal-Mart's lack-of-benefits plan find themselves relying more on government services.
What would we really get in return from a Wal-Mart, anyhow? In exchange for an opportunity to allegedly 'pay less' for cheaply-produced consumer goods, Chicagoans would gain a major political player who has a clear track record of fighting or preventing policies that benefit workers, families, and communities.
To allow Wal-Mart to operate on a mass scale in Chicago means that Chicago workers and families lose out. They also lose out on the benefits that independent, local businesses bring to our neighborhoods. Studies have shown that independent, locally-owned businesses give, on average, 350% more to local non-profits than non-locally owned businesses, and that they recirculate a 70% more money back into their communities than do chain stores.
This means that it is independent, local businesses that keep both wealth and jobs in Chicago for Chicago families – not the Wal-Marts of the world.
Yet both Mayor Daley and the Wal-Mart PR machine would have you believe that big boxes are the only option for creating real jobs in Chicago. What they won't tell you about are the hundreds of thriving independent business alliances nationwide, working with groups like the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies to support socially responsible economic development.
They won't tell you about successful projects like the Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, which sponsors new green technology cooperatives in some of the city's most economically depressed neighborhoods. “The Cleveland Model,” as it is called, not only creates new jobs but provides worker-owners an opportunity to build real equity, while simultaneously creating sustainable infrastructure for both the city and local businesses.
They won't tell you that our options really look like this:
Option 1: We undermine our own power as citizens by giving it to a multinational corporation known for antagonizing unorganized workers and unions alike, whose business model is based on intensively using non-renewable resources like oil (surely questionable in this time of the BP disaster in the Gulf), and who regularly spends millions to fight local ordinances and regulations; or
Option 2: We choose, as a city, to invest in helping start community-based and environmentally sustainable, independent businesses, who can help keep real wages and real wealth in our Chicago neighborhoods for the long-term.
The choice is clear: independent, local business is the way to build long-lasting, high-paying jobs in Chicago.
Megan Wade Antieau serves on the board of Local First Chicago, the city's network for independent, local businesses.