Oakland Bans Wal Mart Supercenters

[David Gold]

Bunch of Socialists try to halt progress. This hurts the consumer of Oakland. Will drive them out of Oakland. The Wal Mart Supercenters are incredible. There was a story last week that showed their prices were 14% lower than competing firms. AP

Oakland, California Bans Wal-Mart Supercenters

Oakland has become the latest California community to ban Wal-Mart "Supercenters" that sell discount groceries alongside other bargain goods.

The Oakland City Council voted 7-1 Tuesday night to approve a measure to limit the size of "big-box" grocery stores allowed in the city. The ordinance bars discount retail stores with full-service supermarkets that exceed 100,000 square feet, or about 2.5 acres.

The measure targets Wal-Mart Supercenters -- gigantic shopping centers that average 187,000 square feet, about twice the size of the typical Wal-Mart store.

Since introducing the concept in 1998, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer has opened 1,258 Supercenters in 43 states -- but none in California. However, that state figures in Wal-Mart's continuing expansion plans.

Starting next year, Wal-Mart plans to open 40 Supercenters in California over the next four years.

[KBOC]

Target willl never get a dime from me for a lot of reasons, mostly because their owned by cockroaches that speak froggish.

Wal-Mart will for one reason.

My friend Tony and his wife had to live in their RV for a couple of years and spend a lot of time on the road for most of that.

Because of Wal-Mart, they always knew they'd have a place to park at night, since all Wal-Mart stores allow RV Drivers to do exactly that. It kept their lives from being a living hell.

It has nothing to do with lower prices for me.

[NetGear]

More CaliChaos... (NNUTS)

Oakland is Otay,

Buckwheat.

[Meshuga Mikey]

the "COMMUNITY" in oakland is angry becuse these places are too big for Drive By Shopping Sprees,...a popular pastime in the neighborhood...from what I heard.

[Derick]

There is some credence to the "Wal Mart Effect" on smaller towns. I spent a lot of time in Sonora, CA when "Wally World" was moving in. Indeed, smaller, long time business were strained and some had to close. Wal Mart ate up the local harware store, the corner grocery, etc. There are some in Sonora who will, in principle avoid Wal Mart like the plague, opting to drive 30 miles to the next town and K Mart!

And the debate on the Wal Mart Effect could go on for days, in the purely theoretical, but the emotional reality was there in Sonora.

But Sonora was a small town; Oakland is not. Oakland is the prime place for the large retailer, and it should go in. Any number of large retailers have come and gone in Oakland and the East Bay area. Look at the rapid expansion of Emeryville.

The idea that a major metropolitan area can call for this kind of limited growth, is simply silly. It will never work, especially if Jerry Brown has any chance of turning my one time hometown around.

[Steven M]

I have heard of small towns and upscale suburbs banning Wal-Mart, but this is the first time I have heard a big city doing that. I can understand a small town keeping Wal-Mart out because of its effect on its retail economy and an affluent community banning Wal-Mart because of preserving its upscale image and residents' property values. But urban areas like Oakland are appropriate for big-box retailers like Wal-Mart.

I understand many residents in Oakland live on low incomes and would benefit from Wal-Mart's low prices which would make more goods affordable to them. But since the local officials' powers come from poor people, they must reason that by keeping them poor, they will remain in power. Can't have the poor enjoy a better lifestyle which a big discount retailer like Wal-Mart could offer them.

[David Gold]

Could this have occured because of pressure from Oakland based Safeway?

Here is a good story on how grocery chains should deal with Walmart. LA Times

How Chains Can Deal With Walmart

[Derick]

Could this have occured because of pressure from Oakland based Safeway?

As far as I know, Safeway is now based in Walnut Creek (suburb, about 20 miles from Oakland). The old complex at 3rd & Alice, near Jack London Square, and in the heart of the produce mart area, is defunct.

Of course, they could be still protecting their turf in Oakland....

[jtdc]

When the proposal for a new Wal Mart came to my town, I voted no. Of course I was in the minority and was among the losers. Now that it has be built and opened, I have heard that many of those who thought it would be a good thing are now unhappy with it.

A few years ago I recall that Vermont banded Wal Marts anywhere in the state. I haven't heard if that is still in effect or when that ban was ended. Even though I may shop there, I am not in favor of them.

[David Gold]

Now Modesto. Modesto Bee

No Walmarts In Modesto

[Derick]

No, not Modesto, Turlock, the next town south....
WallyWorld is well entrenched in Molesto

[David Gold]

Walmart helps push some menial jobs abroad. LA Times

Walmart Pushes Jobs Abroad

[David Gold]

Unions fight WalMart
LA Times

California's unions fight hard to keep Wal-Mart out of town

By Nancy Cleeland and Abigail Goldman
Los Angeles Times




Inglewood, Calif., seemed to offer the perfect home for a new Wal-Mart Supercenter, with low-income residents hungry for bargains and a mayor craving the sales-tax revenue that flows from big-box stores.

But nearly two years after deciding to build on a 60-acre lot near the Hollywood Park racetrack, Wal-Mart is nowhere near pouring concrete. Instead, the world's biggest company is at war with a determined opposition, led by organized labor.

"A line has been drawn in the sand," said Donald Eiesland, president of Inglewood Park Cemetery and the head of Partners for Progress, a local pro-business group. "It's the union against Wal-Mart. This has nothing to do with Inglewood."

Indeed, similar battles are breaking out across California, and both sides are digging in hard. Wal-Mart Stores wants to move into the grocery business throughout the state by opening 40 Supercenters, each a 200,000-square-foot behemoth that combines a fully stocked food market with a discount mega-store — entirely staffed by nonunion employees. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Teamsters are trying to thwart that effort, hoping to save relatively well-paying union jobs.

The unions have amassed a seven-figure fund and are calling in political favors to fight Wal-Mart. The giant retailer is countering every move aggressively, and some analysts believe that Wal-Mart's share of grocery sales in the state eventually could reach 20 percent. The state's first Supercenter is set to open in March in La Quinta, near Palm Springs.

"If we have an advantage," said Robert McAdam, Wal-Mart's vice president for state and local government relations, "it's that we are offering what people want."

Wal-Mart has won allies by providing people of modest means a chance to stretch their dollars. "We need to have retail outlets that are convenient and offer quality goods and services at low prices," said John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League. "I really think that there are potential economic benefits for this community with the addition of a Wal-Mart."

Yet the Supercenters also threaten the 250,000 members of the UFCW and Teamsters who work in the supermarket business in California.

The unions have been a major force in the state grocery industry for decades and have negotiated generous labor contracts. Wal-Mart pays grocery workers an estimated $10 less per hour in wages and benefits than do the big supermarkets nationwide — $19 vs. $9. As grocery chains brace for the competition, their workers face severe cutbacks in compensation.

"We're going to end up just like the Wal-Mart workers," said Rick Middleton, a Teamsters official in Los Angeles County who eagerly hands out copies of a paperback called "How Wal-Mart Is Destroying America." "If we don't as labor officials address this issue now, the future for our membership is dismal, very dismal."

The push for concessions has started, prompting the longest supermarket strike in Southern California's history. About 70,000 grocery workers employed by Albertsons, Kroger's Ralphs and Safeway's Vons and Pavilions have been walking picket lines since Oct. 11, largely to protest proposed reductions in health benefits. The supermarkets say they need these cuts to hold their own against Wal-Mart.

Rick Icaza, president of one of seven UFCW locals in Southern California, has taken issue with much of the supermarkets' rhetoric since the labor dispute began. But he doesn't doubt that Wal-Mart is the biggest threat ever posed to the grocery chains — and, in turn, his members.

"The No. 1 enemy has still got to be Wal-Mart," he said.

The unions and their community allies have stopped Wal-Mart in some places and slowed it in others. They have persuaded officials in at least a dozen cities and counties to adopt zoning laws to keep out Supercenters and stores like them.

Homeowner groups, backed by union money, sued to stop construction of two Supercenters in Bakersfield, arguing that the stores would drive local merchants out of business. Contra Costa County and Oakland also have passed measures that could block Supercenters.

In Los Angeles, several City Council members are drafting an ordinance to require an examination of how large-scale projects such as Supercenters would affect the community, including the possible loss of union jobs. As envisioned by supporters, the measure would allow the city to insist on higher wages as a condition of approval.

"We want Wal-Mart to be able to help us with our economic development," said Councilman Eric Garcetti, who is co-sponsoring the measure. "We just want to be able to do it on our terms and not theirs."

Wal-Mart, however, can more than match its foes in resources and resolve.

To soften its outsider image, the retailer has hired local political insiders to coax projects through planning bureaucracies. It has promised jobs and sales-tax bonanzas to cities struggling with deficits and unemployment.

When the answer is "no," Wal-Mart — already the nation's largest grocer — rarely concedes defeat. At least nine times during its latest California push, the company has responded to legal barriers by threatening to sue or to take its case straight to local voters by forcing referendums.

That's what happened in Inglewood after the City Council in October 2002 adopted an emergency ordinance barring construction of retail stores that exceed 155,000 square feet and sell more than 20,000 nontaxable items such as food and pharmacy products. The measure was tailored to block a Supercenter.

Icaza declared victory. "Wal-Mart's plans to enter the retail grocery business in Inglewood are dead!" he crowed in a union newsletter.

But they weren't. Within a month, Wal-Mart gathered 9,250 signatures on petitions, more than enough to force a public vote. The company also threatened to sue the city for alleged procedural violations. Looking at a possible court battle or an embarrassing failure at the polls, Inglewood officials withdrew the ordinance.

Furious with the council, Icaza ran a candidate in city elections in June. Ralph Franklin, a former supermarket clerk and manager and now a UFCW business agent, won with 70 percent of the vote, ousting a council member who had gone against the union.

Worried that the council might try to trip it up again, Wal-Mart went on the offensive. In August, the company, through a group called the Citizens Committee to Welcome Wal-Mart to Inglewood, began gathering a new batch of signatures to force a popular vote on the Supercenter. The initiative, which calls for building permits to be issued without a public hearing or environmental-impact study, is expected to be on the March 2004 ballot.

"When people feel they're not getting a fair shake with the legislative process, they take things to a vote" of the electorate, said McAdam, the Wal-Mart vice president.

Wal-Mart's opponents have vowed to sue to block the initiative on the grounds that it oversteps the limits of the ballot process.

UFCW and Teamsters locals have raised dues or diverted money from other programs to bankroll anti-Wal-Mart campaigns. With more than $1 million available, thousands of members to draw from and encouragement from national leaders, local labor would seem to be in a strong position. But union efforts have been hampered by personality conflicts and disagreements over strategies and goals, according to people close to the efforts.

As in Inglewood, many union locals have focused on site fights, winning zoning restrictions at the local level. That strategy can save union jobs temporarily, but it does little to stop the long-term march of Wal-Mart, critics say. After all, there are 478 cities in California, 88 in Los Angeles County alone.

Pushing for zoning restrictions also can backfire, stirring resentment among consumers and business owners — even those who directly compete with Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart opponents "try to use the government to accomplish things that they may not be able to accomplish in the marketplace," said Alan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, which five years ago strongly opposed a labor-backed attempt by the state Legislature to ban big-box stores from selling a full line of groceries. "It's not government's role to interfere with what consumers want."

For their part, national labor strategists want local leaders to focus less on zoning campaigns and more on the daunting, long-term goal of unionizing Wal-Mart employees. Few take the advice, and those who do quickly realize just what they are up against.

George Hartwell, president of UFCW Local 1036 in Camarillo, hired 18 organizers to hit the nine Wal-Mart stores in his jurisdiction. With few leads to go on and employees forbidden to talk about unions, progress was slow. Then in mid-summer, a group wearing union T-shirts was served with trespassing papers and asked to leave a Wal-Mart in Lompoc. Lawyers tussled over that for months. Hartwell and his crew now can enter the stores, but with strict limitations. "We go through and say, 'good morning' or 'good afternoon,' just to be visible," he said.

Despite the long odds in taking on the company, many union activists insist they have no choice.

"I've put 29 years of my life into this job, and now they're trying to pull the rug out from under me," said Diane Johnson, a union cashier at a Pavilions store in Los Angeles who is helping to coordinate anti-Wal-Mart efforts in Inglewood through the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

Johnson and co-workers have made door-to-door visits and spoken from church pulpits, hoping to turn public opinion against the discounter. "For me to go backward would just be hell," she said.

But Wal-Mart, the nation's largest seller of everything from toys to DVDs, has plenty of defenders, too, some of them politically and financially powerful. They vary from prominent Los Angeles toy importer Charlie Woo, who recently took up Wal-Mart's case before Los Angeles City Council members, to Jeffrey Katzenberg, a co-founder of Hollywood studio DreamWorks SKG. He lobbied former Gov. Gray Davis against signing a statewide anti-big-box measure passed by the Legislature five years ago; Davis vetoed the bill.

McAdam said Wal-Mart doesn't order its suppliers to lobby on the company's behalf. But it does spell out for vendors the consequences of anti-Wal-Mart legislation. "It's our belief that on certain issues, they have a vested interest in seeing ... that our company can continue to grow," McAdam said.

The ordinance being considered in Los Angeles would ask planners to weigh the "community benefits" of a mega-store in any zone that receives federal, state or municipal money or incentives — essentially the entire city.

Like an environmental-impact report, the community-benefits study would consider possible negative outcomes and propose ways to mitigate them. Wages could be held to "prevailing standards." If supermarkets were deemed the standard, that would mean union scale.

Backed by Councilmen Garcetti and Ed Reyes, the ordinance could be ready for a council vote next month.

Several studies commissioned in recent years by pro-business groups, including the Orange County Business Council and the San Diego Taxpayers Association, found the state would suffer a net economic loss if union jobs were traded for jobs at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart had declined to respond with numbers of its own until a few months ago, when it commissioned the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. to measure the effect of Supercenters on the region. Researcher Gregory Freeman said the study balanced wage losses with consumer savings, noting that Supercenter prices typically are 20 percent lower than at union markets.

The study was completed two weeks ago, Freeman said, but hasn't been released.

As he began his study in mid-summer, Freeman told council members that other analyses haven't measured all the pros and cons of the Supercenters fairly. For one thing, he said, savings from lower grocery prices could be used by working-class shoppers for other things, such as buying homes.

As for those merchants who won't be able to compete with Wal-Mart, others say, progress always carries a price.

"I grew up in Pennsylvania; my father had a corner market there. When I was 3 or 4, the A&P moved in and put him out of business," said the Chamber's Zaremberg. "That was tough for us, but I don't think anyone would go back and say we shouldn't have supermarkets."

[David Gold]

It's a war for WalMart in Contra Costa County. Sac Bee

WalMart Wars

[David Gold]

I told you this would happen. Oakland doesn't want a Wal-Mart. So what?Their loss. Tracy will take the Supercenter. Oakland Tribune.


Oakland Tribune


Wal-Mart pushes for Supercenter
Company wants to double the size of its Tracy store in statewide expansion
By David Morrill
BUSINESS WRITER


Friday, December 12, 2003 -

TRACY -- Wal-Mart's plans to make an aggressive push of its monster "Supercenters" into California could hit Tracy, as the nation's largest company wants to nearly double the size of its existing store in the city.

The proposal could reach the Tracy Planning Commission next spring. If passed, the conversion of the site at 3010 W. Grant Line Road could be completed by late 2005.

The proposed 206,600-square-foot Tracy Supercenter would combine the existing 126,000-square-foot department store with a full-service grocery store that will feature produce and deli departments. Wal-Mart plans to eventually open 40 Supercenters in California.

From 1992 to 2002, the company, which tops the Fortune 500 list of the nation's largest corporations, has expanded its number of Supercenters from 34 nationwide to 1,258 at the end of 2002. The company's annual sales in 2002 was $247 billion.

"We have been in the Tracy market for close to a decade and have built a real strong and loyal customer base there," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Hill said. "So far it seems like the City Council and city staff are supportive of the idea."

An environmental review is currently being conducted by Wal-Mart and the city to see if there are issues such as traffic, noise and pollution that need to be addressed.


Vicki Lombardo, senior planner for the city of Tracy, said that the economic analysis, which is part of the environmental review, is likely to be a huge factor on the fate of the Supercenter.

Eric Parfrey, who serves as chairman of the Mother Lode chapter of the Sierra Club, said his organization is opposed to the building of such stores.


"Tracy is very pro-development," Parfrey said. "They have never met a developer they didn't love, so I'm sure they will embrace this Wal-Mart proposal with open arms. The city is like a heroin junkie in withdrawal looking for drugs."

Union leaders and many Bay Area politicians decry Wal-Mart's longtime anti-union stance, saying that the company takes advantage of employees' non-union status by paying poor wages and benefits.

Andrew Malik, Tracy's economic development director, believes that stores in downtown Tracy will still be able to survive if the Wal-Mart proposal goes through.

"We went through this when we built a large mall here in the fall of 1995," Malik said. "Everyone said it would kill downtown, but the fact is it hasn't."

Since the mall's arrival, Malik said there has been a 22 percent increase in sales tax, and the vacancy rate in downtown Tracy has dropped from 18 percent to 1 percent.

If the new Wal-Mart store passes, it will add about 250 jobs, Hill said. The current Wal-Mart employs about 275 employees.

Other possible sites Hill identified for Superstores include Napa, Stockton and Lodi.

Wal-Mart's Supercenters have been controversial in other parts of the Bay Area.

Last summer, Contra Costa County supervisors approved an ordinance banning Wal-Mart and other so-called "big-box" stores larger than 90,000 square feet from selling groceries and other non-taxable items on more than 5 percent of their floor space.

In March, voters in Contra Costa will get to vote on a referendum initiated by Wal-Mart that challenges the ban.

"A big education factor needs to occur, because the majority of the voters don't really know what it's about," said Hill.

[David Gold]

All over California municipal governments want to keep Wal Mart Superstores kept out. This is politically motivated nonsense. Let the people vote and decise. How about trusting the voter? Leftists don't want that to occur. LA Times

The People Want Wal Mart

[David Gold]

More Wal Mart bashing from an LA Times columnist.

Snob?

[athelwolfe]

The best way to fight wally world is to not shop there. I willing spend more money to shop at smaller retailers that I know and know will give good service instead of going to one of the giant boxes with employees of the hour. To be honest I might go in there 3 times a year.

[David Gold]

This is a great column dealing with Wal Mart. Sac Bee

Daniel Weintraub: Wal-Mart: Collective bargaining for the consumer
Sacramento Bee ^ | December 31, 2003 |

I am not a Wal-Mart shopper. Never have been. I don't think I have ever bought a thing in any of their stories, nor do I plan to any time soon. I prefer shopping at my neighborhood supermarket or, when possible, at the corner grocery. But I think the massive retail company is getting a bad rap. We are supposed to hate Wal-Mart because the company is huge, nonunion, pays low wages and squeezes suppliers until they scream. The prospect of Wal-Mart invading the grocery business by opening 40 California superstores next year is the only thing that supermarket owners and their workers agree upon: It's bad.

But when I look at Wal-Mart I don't see a monster. I see the world's most efficient consumer-empowerment machine. Through the magic of free markets and free will, Wal-Mart does on our behalf what each of us would do on our own if we could: get the best deal on the merchandise we buy every day.

When we fix our car, hire a plumber or paint our house, we look for the best deal we can get, which we usually define as the lowest price for the quality we want. We insist that government do the same thing. It's a scandal when any bureaucrat is caught paying more than the lowest responsible bid.

What Wal-Mart does is take millions of consumers, bring them together under one umbrella and use their collective bargaining power to get the best price on the quality they demand.

Suppose you were shopping for a new lawnmower and went to your nearest hardware store to take a look at the selection. Say a buddy went with you. You see a mower you like for $299. Your buddy kind of likes it, too. So you approach the store owner with a proposal. If you buy two, will he sell them to you for $275 each? If the owner agrees, do you feel as if you have exploited him? Of course not. You saved a few bucks by using a little extra leverage to your advantage.

Some people cringe when they see Wal-Mart doing the same thing, over and over and around the world. And to be sure, there are questions about labor and environmental practices in foreign countries that bear watching. But for the most part these are transition issues. In the long run, manufacturing jobs will lead to a better life for the world's poor, just as they did for the rest of the developed world.

But what about Americans? Wal-Mart's founder, the late Sam Walton, once boasted that his company bought only goods made in the United States. Now the company he started is blamed for killing American jobs, not only by encouraging worldwide competition but also by paying its own workers half of what employees in similar stores earn.

In California, grocery workers and their bosses are bracing for the effect of Wal-Mart's coming expansion. Supermarket employees in Southern California have been on strike since Oct. 7. The three big companies that employ them -- Ralphs, Safeway and Albertsons -- say they must reduce payroll costs to compete with the coming behemoth.

The unions that represent the grocery workers, meanwhile, are lobbying local governments to ban big stores, namely Wal-Mart, that devote more than a certain amount of space to the sale of food. Several cities already have done so.

The problem with this strategy is that it focuses only on the potential ill-effects on the workers and owners affected by competition in the grocery industry. It ignores the beneficial effects that competition will bring to all other Californians.

And those benefits could be enormous.

A recent independent survey determined that Wal-Mart's grocery prices are 17 percent to 39 percent lower than the company's competitors. And California's supermarket industry was a $46 billion enterprise in 2002. That means the state's residents stand to gain between $8 billion and $18 billion if Wal-Mart enters the fray and drives down prices here as it has every place else the company has been allowed to compete.

Those savings would go disproportionately to middle-class and low-income Californians, for whom supermarket purchases soak up a relatively larger share of family income. And those people will then spend those extra dollars on their other needs, creating jobs in other industries that did not exist before.

So for the sake of 250,000 grocery store clerks and baggers, and their employers, the other 35 million people in this state are asked to agree to pay billions of dollars more than they ought to for the necessities of life, and to deprive themselves of choices that could make their lives better. You don't have to be a Wal-Mart shopper to see that this is not a bargain that makes sense.

Change is not always easy. Its benefits often flow to the many in small portions, while the hurt is felt by a few in a big way. Even so, we shouldn't let the relative handful of people who might be harmed by competition from Wal-Mart deprive the rest of the state of the benefits the company's arrival can bring.