Now that's an alliteration.
So, the Chicago City Council is debating Wednesday whether to grant Wal-Mart two zoning changes and let them open their notoriously union-hostile, corparate-welfare-loving, wealth-sucking super-centers in two poor black neighborhoods of the Great City of Chicago.
Unions and advocates have, to their credit, sparked our municipal government to push back against the Wal-Martization of retail (which means low wages without benefits for employees and sucking the wealth away from local stores and back into the Arkansas-based Walton family, who are now boast something like four of the top ten wealthiest people in the country. They are billionaires. And they donate big-time to right-wing causes. Check out some background on them here (got to love the LaRouchies for doing the research).
Wal-Mart is bad for progressives and bad for Chicago. There are a ton of victories around the country on pushing back against Wal-Mart coming in (check out this google search).
The AFL-CIO has a pretty good policy position on the topic here.
If you live in Chicago, call 311 to get connected to your alderman's office and ask them vote against Wal-Mart coming to town (unless they sign a Chicago-style Community Benefits Agreement that would permit a fair union drive and local employment, similar to what the United Center developers signed which did direct real investment into the poor neighborhoods around the Center, which Wal-Mart honchos have so far refused to sign).
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