Big-box debate divides city, puts Daley rivals in a bind

Big-box debate divides city, puts Daley rivals in a b
September 14, 2006

BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST


The City Council had a different vibe Wednesday while the attempt to override Mayor Daley's veto of the big-box ordinance was falling three votes short.

Even though the outcome was pretty much known before the vote, there was an underlying tension that you don't typically see -- an awkward air of uncertainty.

Aldermen who usually can be expected to back each other up found themselves on opposing sides and exchanging harsh rhetoric. Aldermen who can normally be counted upon to support the mayor down the line grimly cast their votes against him.

There's an election just around the corner, you see, and suddenly people are making threats, promising political retribution to those on the wrong side of the issue.

And despite a lot of brave talk, it's not entirely clear which is the wrong side of this issue from the voters' point of view, especially when you break it down ward by ward.

"Aldermen vote no, they gotta go," some of the spectators on the losing side chanted on their way out of the City Council chambers after the 31-18 vote. But the aldermen who voted in favor of the override said they had been threatened, as well.

'Karl Rove-type spin job'

Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), who supported the ordinance, thought she saw something sinister in the way the issue has split opinion in the African-American community, suggesting without explicitly saying so that perhaps it had been done intentionally in anticipation of the upcoming election.

Even some white aldermen like Ald. Tom Allen (38th), left hung out to dry by the mayor's comments a day earlier implying race was a factor in the union-led effort to impose a higher minimum wage on big-box retailers, wondered aloud about a "Karl Rove-type spin job" intended to polarize city residents.

I won't say that was the original intent, but the outcome sure puts the mayor's potential rivals in a bind, perhaps Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in particular seeing as how the congressman seems to be lining up with the Service Employees International Union, among the ordinance's staunchest supporters, while many black aldermen clearly think the issue cuts the other way in their needy communities.

Ald. William Beavers (7th), who will be moving from the City Council to the Cook County Board and plans to run his daughter in his place, said he is expecting organized labor to team with Jackson to back a slate of aldermanic candidates and target those like him who opposed the big-box ordinance. Beavers also said he believes Jackson's wife, Sandi, is going to make good on threats to run against his daughter Darcel.

But the alderman said he's not concerned.

"I think the unions are going to get a rude awakening," Beavers said. "They don't do nothing for us. They don't do nothing for us in the construction industry. Every female person I talked to loves Wal-Mart, and they feel the way I do: A $7-an-hour job is better than no job at all."

I never liked the ordinance because it didn't make sense to me to single out just one industry for a higher minimum wage, especially when it was mainly devised as an effort to get back at one company within that industry. More important, perhaps, I couldn't see taking the risk of denying jobs to communities that need them the most.

Supporters say the stores will come anyway because they need the market to continue their expansion. I can't say for sure. If the stores think there's money to be made, I'm sure they'll get here eventually. But they haven't so far.

Everybody likes the big-box ordinance's promise of higher wages, which is why the polls show so much public support and why 31 aldermen still found it advisable to vote against Daley. I find myself in agreement with the mayor: if you're going to raise the minimum wage, great, but you'd better go to Springfield and approach it on a state level.

Supporters of the ordinance cast opponents as pawns of big corporations. Opponents portrayed supporters as pawns of the labor unions.

Democracy restored?

It seems to me like an issue where people could simply have an honest difference of opinion, but if this is what it takes to restore democracy to Chicago, I'd rather fuel the fire than put it out.

Organized labor, a lap dog at City Hall during most of Daley's 17 years in office, is suddenly reinvigorated politically. Aldermen were debating an issue of public policy on its merits, some more coherently than others.

Ald. Howard Brookins (21st) was making a pretty good speech in defense of his opposition to the ordinance when he suddenly veered into some misguided comments about how he understood how tough it must be to support a family with a low-wage job because "I can't afford to feed my kids with a six-figure income."

That's the kind of thing that will lose an election a lot faster than having the unions lined up against you.