Daley plays race card, but could lose bet

Daley plays race card, but could lose bSeptember 17, 2006

BY MONROE ANDERSON Advertisement


When Mayor Daley played the race card in Chicago's big-box battle, it was all over for me. Until he declared, ''all of a sudden, when we talk about economic development in the black community, there's something wrong,'' I was six in one hand, half a dozen in the other, on whether the city should cut Wal-Mart in or box it out.

Since the big-box ordinance was introduced in the City Council two years ago, requiring stores in Chicago with 90,000 square feet or more and at least $1 billion a year in sales to pay their employees a minimum wage of $10 an hour and $3 in benefits, I've been Hamlet trying to decide whether to be or not to be in favor of 49th Ward Ald. Joe Moore's legislation.

On the one hand, there seems to be something grossly un-American with Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott Jr. getting paid $8,434.49 an hour while the average Wal-Mart associate makes $9.68 an hour. It seems callous that some Wal-Mart associates are paid so little that they have to decide between food and a roof over their heads or kicking in a third of the cost of the premiums so that they can have health insurance. And, Wal-Mart seems to lead to death and destruction of mom-and-pop stores whenever it moves into a town.

On the other hand, the areas Wal-Mart has plans to move in on in Chicago have been economically dead and destroyed for decades. To these blighted areas, Wal-Mart looks like the Red Cross rolling in with hot coffee and warm blankets. On Chicago's South and West sides, in communities such as Englewood and Garfield Park, jobs for the unskilled are scarce and distant. Over the years, jobs that an unskilled worker could count on -- gas station attendants, elevator operators, even hand shovel-swinging ditch-diggers -- have disappeared, vanquished by automation. Those were the kind of jobs that kept the unskilled and uneducated off the welfare rolls and out of the state prisons.

Moore obviously recognizes the importance of low-skilled jobs but believes they should come at the right price. He says his fight for living wages isn't over yet. At a City Council meeting next month, he plans to introduce a new ordinance that will mandate a minimum wage for companies in Chicago that employ 1,000 workers or more -- a noble move that is sure to have more employers threatening to leave town and is destined to follow the path of the big box.

So for the poorly educated, unskilled and unemployed, Wal-Mart's big box seems better than nothing.

In borrowing a bit of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's rhetoric while muscling in on his turf last week, the day before swatting away the City Council challenge to his veto, Daley seems to have trumped Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s bid to best him in a mayoral challenge. The mayor now has some powerful black preachers and politicians in his pocket, as well as some small black business owners. Had the big-box ordinance stood, there was the specter of an economic domino effect resulting in underfinanced black businesses forced to pay higher wages down the line.

For Daley's mayoral opponents, the focus will be on a lower number: Six.

In July, it was reported that only six of every 100 Chicago Public School students will graduate from college. The Rev. James Meeks, a close political ally to Congressman Jackson, has already accused the mayor of failing African-American children by presiding over a system that worsened under his watch. From Meeks' perspective, Daley has failed 94 percent of Chicago's schoolchildren.

Some of those children, the lucky ones, may have landed a few of the 325 spots at Wal-Mart in Evergreen Park when 25,000 job seekers lined up last January. On the $7.50 an hour that it pays, they'll make $15,600 a year before taxes and insurance costs. If they're single and childless, they'll get by. If they're a family of four or a single parent with two children, they'll join the ranks of the working poor.

Although the deck is stacked against Wal-Mart's employees, the mayor and his race card may have aced a high-stakes bet, but not one I'd want to wager.






monroeanderson@gmail.com