Word: marts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When Emma Mitts, an alderwoman in West Chicago, was appointed in 2000, retail in her 37th Ward consisted of corner stores. Mitts vowed to upgrade the options. In 2003, at a conference sponsored by the International Council of Shopping Centers, Mitts met with Wal-Mart officials who informed her that they had tried once before to put a store in Chicago but had been stiff-armed. "The unions stopped them," said Mitts. "But the unions weren't an issue...
...Mart's move into the inner city has set off a debate in the black community about economic development. Traditional activists see the company as a corporate parasite. "Desperate people do desperate things. People would rather have a supermarket than not," says Jesse Jackson, whose Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is headquartered in Chicago. "But the point is that employment and development must go hand in hand. We need work where you can have a livable wage and health insurance, and retirement...
...come on the West Side," says Melvin Bailey, a local activist. "You'll hear a saying around here, and that is that a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing." Denise Carter, 63, who lives in West Chicago and is disabled and retired, sees Wal-Mart as a salvation. "I'm happy Wal-Mart is coming," she says. "We need more bargains, and we need more jobs. I'm hoping I can take my grandson and granddaughter up there...
With a site on Chicago's West Side, in the impoverished Austin neighborhood, Wal-Mart has improved its score in the inner-city market. Last year Wal-Mart tried to put two stores in Chicago, both in black neighborhoods--one in Austin and another on the South Side, in more middle-class Chatham. The middle-class community, less desperate for the jobs, voted against the Wal-Mart store. The outcome in some ways duplicated Wal-Mart's split decision in California, where it lost a bid to open in Inglewood in Los Angeles County but succeeded in Oakland. Wal-Mart...
...that the building-trades unions, traditionally controlled by whites, are keeping a grip on jobs. While 37% of Chicago is black, only 10% of all new apprentices in the construction trades between 2000 and 2003 were black, according to the Chicago Tribune. The unions that most vociferously oppose Wal-Mart are not in the building trades but represent retail workers, such as the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which has long welcomed blacks. Still, Mitts and many in the 37th Ward conflated the two and had no problem allying themselves with Wal-Mart...