Word: chicago
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...CHICAGO...
...Mart may have earned more than $11 billion last year, but it's squawking over a $10 bill. The bill in question is a new Chicago ordinance that the retailer fiercely opposes, which will require the company--along with Target, Home Depot and other giant retailers--to pay a starting wage of $10 an hour, plus $3 in benefits, to anyone hired in the Windy City. The living-wage ordinance, passed by the city council after ferocious campaigning by organized labor and its business opponents, is the country's first directed at big retailers. Once enacted...
...stores, labor seems to have hit on a winning legislative tactic in the battle over pay. Congress hasn't acted in nearly a decade, and although 140 local living-wage laws have been enacted in the U.S., most apply just to city workers or contractors. Union leaders say the Chicago rule means a long-overdue raise for the working poor. In real terms, wages for nonmanagerial retail workers have fallen 18% since 1975. But David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, says the law could deter inner-city economic development. "Companies affected by this ordinance have capital budgets...
...fights like this, retailers use the exit threat, then stay and expand," says Annette Bernhardt, a labor expert at New York University Law School. One of Target's most successful units is in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, and studies suggest there's $1.3 billion in untapped spending on the city's North Side and West Side alone. That, says Dorian Warren, a politics professor at Columbia University, "is going to be worth far more than the $10 wage costs them...
...early results are sterling - the team has bought into Krzyzewski's selfless, defense-first philosophy, evidenced by blowouts of China and Puerto Rico and a gritty 90-86 win over Brazil in exhibition games. The plucky ex-Army point guard from Chicago has mixed in motivational ploys - a speech by a soldier blinded in Iraq moved many players to tears - but won't overdo the rah-rah stuff. "We haven't gone on a canoe trip," quips K when asked how he has united the team. "We'll bond on the court...