City's First Walmart To Be Built In Queens

[NewYorkYankee]

City's First Walmart To Be Built In Queens

DECEMBER 07TH, 2004

NY1

New York City may not seem like Wal-Mart territory, but the world's biggest retailer could soon set up shop in Queens.

According to Newsday, Wal-Mart announced Monday that it plans to build its first New York City store along Queens Boulevard in Rego Park.

That strip is already home to Target, Sears and the Queens Center Mall.

Wal-Mart says the store will likely open in 2008.

[NewYorkYankee]

A little more...

Wal-Mart heads into city

Plan to build a Rego Park store would add another 'big box' to a crowded Queens shopping hub

Newsday

BY LAUREN WEBER
STAFF WRITER

December 7, 2004


There's almost nothing New York City shoppers can't find in their own city, be it custom-fitted leather pants, $10,000 baby carriages or spices from any country in the world.

Just about the only thing they can't find here is a Wal-Mart.

That may change in a few years. Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, yesterday said it plans to build its first New York City store in Rego Park, opening as soon as 2008.

The store would be located at the southeast corner where Queens Boulevard intersects with the Long Island Expressway. That puts it on a strip of the boulevard that already includes other national retailers including Sears, Marshall's, Best Buy, Target and the shops at the newly expanded Queens Center mall.

Whether the neighborhood will welcome Wal-Mart - whose stores have run into opposition in towns from Maine to Mexico - remains to be seen. Big discount stores have been met by stiff resistance in other parts of the city, but this one may be different.

"If they were coming somewhere in Manhattan, you probably would have very active community boards resistant to it," said Robin Abrams, a retail real estate broker with Manhattan-based Lansco, who was not involved with the Wal-Mart deal. But "in Rego Park, there's already been a lot of growth, a lot of big box stores. So I don't know what kind of resistance you'll get there."

Vornado Realty Trust, the Manhattan-based developer that owns some of the city's most valuable midtown real estate, also owns the Rego Park site and plans to put up a mixed-use building combining retail and housing.

Vornado executives declined to comment. But Bert Dargie, a real estate manager with Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., said the builders will probably break ground in late 2007 or early 2008, with the 135,000-square-foot store open as soon as mid-2008.

Kathleen Histon, district manager of Community Board 6,. said Vornado has not yet submitted a plan, so she could not comment on specifics. The developer as yet to begin the regulatory process. "But you know there'll be more traffic because it's already a heavily congested area," she said.

Wal-Mart has drawn opponents in other urban areas based on congestion and on its reputation for paying low wages, blocking unions and driving independent retailers out of business. Earlier this year, a bitterly divided Chicago city council voted to approve one Wal-Mart store but not a second location.

Histon said Community Board 6 will be as impartial as possible. "We don't have any opinion on Wal-Mart or any other company," she said.

The store will be a single level, Dargie said, but it departs from the usual model because it will be enclosed in a multi-level building. Wal-Mart's typical store, a one-level gray box, dots the landscape of suburban and rural areas.

In cities, though, Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers have been forced to become more flexible. Home Depot, for example, designed a multi-level store when it chose to rent space in the old Hasbro building on 23rd Street in Manhattan. Target has tried to stay visible to trendy Manhattanites through marketing stunts such as temporary stores.

Buyer's Market

If Wal-Mart comes to Queens Boulevard, it will join an increasingly crowded strip of chain stores and megashops sitting off the Long Island Expressway, including:

Proposed Wal-Mart

135,000 square ft.

Open as soon as mid-2008

One level in a multi-level building

THE QUEENS CENTER

Macy's

JC Penney

173 other stores; 21 million shoppers annually

FORMER ALEXANDER'S SITE

Old Navy

Bed, Bath and Beyond

Marshall's

QUEENS PLACE

Target

Best Buy

DSW

[normaldude]

The Rego Park/Elmhurst area is probably the one place in NYC that Wal-mart will not run into much local opposition. That particular neighborhood has been very welcoming of big box/suburban retailers (Target, Sears, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, PC Richard, Queens Center Mall, etc).

[billyblancoNYC]

I voted no, but if there's only ONE, maybe, maybe it's ok. I really hate the chainification of NYC, though.

[NewYorkYankee]

Does anyone have any pics of this neighborhood, or know where I can find some? Do these big box stores have huge parking lots? Is the neighborhood subway friendly?

[normaldude]

Does anyone have any pics of this neighborhood, or know where I can find some? Do these big box stores have huge parking lots? Is the neighborhood subway friendly?

I don't have any pics, but I know these big box stores are all along the G, R subway line.

- Grand Av Station: Target, Best Buy

- Woodhaven Blvd Station: Queens Center Mall, JC Penney, Macy's, PC Richard, Wal-mart (2008)

- 63rd Dr/Rego Park Station: Sears, CompUSA, Circuit City, Old Navy, Bed Bath Beyond.

So if you wanted to see them all, you could get off at the Grand Av station, walk southeast along Queens Blvd, visit all the stores, and get back on at the 63rd Dr/Rego Park station.

[alex ballard]

They really should promote the area as a shopping mecca. They should market it as a sort of "Neighborhood Mall" where all the stores are in one place. Are they gonna have sufficent parking for this Wal-Mart. Not everything Wal-Mart sells is gonna be easily carried onto the subway. This is the same thing that should be done in Jamaica, Fulton Ave, Flatbush Ave, The Hub, 125st, Fordham, And Staten Island Mall.

[Dynamicdezzy]

>>>Sears located along queens blvd. http://www.vno.com/retail/regopark/photo2b.phtml

[Dynamicdezzy]

even though some of the pics r old, u can get an idea by surfing through this guy's site. http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/expwy/qb/

[NewYorkYankee]

Thank you Dynamic! Are the areas surronding these stores pedestrian friendly? Do most people take cars?

[Dynamicdezzy]

this neighborhood is pedestrian friendly. people get to these malls by car or by subway. all of queens blvd. is usually very crowded.

[Dynamicdezzy]

correction: some spots on queens blvd arent that bad...but most people have gotten killed because of carelessness (both pedestrians and drivers). its gotten a couple of nicknames: killer blvd. i guess u have to be there to see why accidents can happen there.

[NewYorkYankee]

I have been on a part of QNS BLVD, it was near the Queensboro bridge. We got out and walked around a bit too. Didnt seem too bad.

[Schadenfrau]

I really hate the idea of having a Wal-Mart in New York City. The company has done such a number on the local economy everywhere else, I can't see why it would be much different here.

[NoyokA]

I have been on a part of QNS BLVD, it was near the Queensboro bridge. We got out and walked around a bit too. Didnt seem too bad.

Dynamicdezzy means bad as in traffic not as in the character of the neighborhood. Many people die from carelessness and J-walking, which carries a heavy fine.

[NewYorkYankee]

I have been on a part of QNS BLVD, it was near the Queensboro bridge. We got out and walked around a bit too. Didnt seem too bad.

Dynamicdezzy means bad as in traffic not as in the character of the neighborhood. Many people die from carelessness and J-walking, which carries a heavy fine.

Yes I understood, I mean it didnt seem bad, as in traffic or anything else. I didnt think it seemed bad to walk on etc. I hadnt even thought about the neighborhood.

[fioco]

Just for the record. FRONTLINE ran an excellent documentary about Wall-Mart just a few weeks ago: "Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/). The film can be viewed online, as well as background info. and interviews.

An introduction to the program:
FRONTLINE offers two starkly contrasting images: one in Circleville, Ohio, where the local TV manufacturing plant has closed down; the other--a sea of high rises in the South China boomtown of Shenzhen. The connection between American job losses and soaring Chinese exports? Wal-Mart. For Wal-Mart, China has become the cheapest, most reliable production platform in the world, the source of up to $25 billion in annual imports that help the company deliver everyday low prices to 100 million customers a week. But while some economists credit Wal-Mart's single-minded focus on low costs with helping contain U.S. inflation, others charge that the company is the main force driving the massive overseas shift to China in the production of American consumer goods, resulting in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and a lower standard of living here at home.

Internal links on the PBS webpage:

The China Connection (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/china/)

Transforming America (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/transform/)

Frontline is a registered trademark of WGBH Boston, copyright 2004

[BrooklynRider]

Wal-Mart has one of the worst records for treatment of its employees. I am totally against it moving in - it destroys shoppibng districts and creates the absolute lowest paying jobs with no benefits. Oh, and don't forget it is a union busting company.

[TonyO]

Globest.com

Analysts Ponder Wal-Mart in NYC

Friday, December 10, 2004
By Ian Ritter


Ian Ritter is national online editor for GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.


NEW YORK CITY-Wal-Mart’s proposed store in a Vornado Realty Trust development in Rego Park, Queens could just be the beginning of an overall push into the city by the largest retailer in the world, industry observers say. Plans for the store follow urban openings by the Home Depot and Target here earlier in the year.


Wal-Mart is not releasing many details about its Queens store. A company spokeswoman says it will be a standard Wal-Mart discount store without perishable groceries, as opposed to a Supercenter. Though the unit will be on one level, it is still not decided what floor of development will house the store. The unit could open some time in 2008. The company has no specific plans to expand in New York City, she says.



The retailer could eventually open about three stores in each of the city’s boroughs, including Manhattan, says David Rosenberg, an EVP at locally based real estate services firm Robert K. Futterman & Associates. “Wal-Mart’s understanding of the market will determine how many stores there can be.”


Big-box retailers are moving into urban areas such as New York City because, in many cases, they don’t have much more room to expand in the suburbs, Rosenberg says. “The main problem those companies will face, besides high real estate costs, is adapting their store formats to urban environments. The biggest obstacle for these companies is to look beyond the typical prototype location.”



The stores Wal-Mart is able to build in the city will be the chain’s most successful, says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of locally based Davidowitz & Associates, a retail consulting and investment banking firm. “The Rego Park move is brilliant,” he says, noting the sales at nearby Queens Mall, which are among the highest posted by a US shopping center. “These are middle-class customers. These are Wal-Mart customers.”


Davidowitz also thinks the chain has the potential to open stores in other boroughs, as well as add more in Queens, but he says he is skeptical of a future store in Manhattan. “Target has looked for years, but all they’ve done is a temporary store,” Davidowitz says, yet notes that there is a slight possibility such an opening could happen.


Though it does not yet have New York City store, Wal-Mart is nearly everywhere else in the country. The retailer operates more than 3,600 stores across the country and expects to increase its total square footage by 8% next year.

[normaldude]

Shopping in the City
by Gail Robinson
13 Dec 2004

Somebody used pepper spray at the biggest Toys ‘R’ Us in the world, the one in Times Square, and since this anti-riot chemical, made from cayenne peppers, can cause temporary blindness, some 3,000 shoppers were evacuated. Many did not stay out for long. “I was scared,” a nine-year-old told the Daily News. “Now I want to go back in for toys.”

The incident occurred, after all, on the weekend after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping weekend of the year, in the city where people come from around the world just to go shopping.

Then last week, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and a symbol to its critics of all that is wrong with the big chain stores, announced plans to open its first outlet in New York.

Shopping has long been recognized as a quintessential New York activity, but it is far more important to the city's economy than most New Yorkers realize. Only Wall Street, some say, is as central to the city's financial health as the retail industry, which provides billions in tax revenue and an increasing percentage of the city's jobs.

But the arrival of chain stores, along with the rise of Internet shopping (see related story), have altered the retail industry in New York. Wal-Mart is not planning to open its New York store until about 2007, but many other chains have already established a very visible presence, including Target and Home Depot, and a giant Ikea has been approved for the Brooklyn waterfront.

SHOPPING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

New York City has been a shopping capital for a century and a half. Department stores were invented here; the first one debuted in 1862 at Astor Place. Retailers such as F.A.O. Schwarz and Tiffany's later moved north to the area from Union Square to 23rd Street, which became known as Ladies Mile and featured such opulent stores as Siegel-Cooper, with its marble staircases and a pet department that sold panther cubs. By the 1890's, a tourist guide could proclaim, "all America goes to New York for its shopping," and this became even more true at the turn of the century, when R.H. Macy moved further uptown to 34th Street, with a half dozen grand emporiums to follow.

The era of the city department store lasted until the middle of the 20th century. That is when a new form of shopping emporium was invented – the suburban shopping mall, which killed downtown shopping districts across the country, and helped put many New York department stores out of business.

New York recovered in the 1990s, with the advent of expensive boutiques in Soho, on Madison Avenue and in the Upper West Side; a much-publicized 1990 guidebook was entitled "New York On $1,000 A Day/Before Lunch." In 2000, according to the Independent Budget Office, stores in New York grossed $21.9 billion in sales.

Following a sharp decline after September 11, 2001, Soho has rebounded this year, with the opening of a Bloomingdale's and an Apple store that some liken to a singles bar, others to a theme park. A new shopping mall -- the Time-Warner Center -- brought an array of chain stores for the affluent to Columbus Circle.

If some of the new stores seem specifically tailored for New York, most reflect what could be considered the third wave of New York emporiums -- transplants from suburbia.

MORE JOBS, FOR LESS PAY

More than 260,0000 New Yorkers worked in the retail industry (excluding bars and restaurants) in 2003, accounting for about one-twelfth of all workers in the city.

Retail workers tend to be less educated than city workers as a whole, and years ago might have found employment in manufacturing. But factory jobs in the city have declined sharply, while the number of retail jobs has risen.

The average retail worker in New York, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute, earned a little less than $30,000 a year in 2003. Nearly two thirds of full-time retail workers do not have health insurance benefits provided by their employers.

And these retail jobs pay less and less. (pdf format)

While the figures do not distinguish between chain stores and others, the drop in wages coincides with the move of chains to the city. About 70 percent of metropolitan supermarkets are unionized, providing workers with health benefits and pensions, but most big retail stores, such as Target, K-Mart, and CVS, are not.

"The quality of jobs in retail is really spotty," said Bruce Herman of the Center for Workforce and Economic Development.

CHAIN STORES

While some entrepreneurs launch their own businesses -- Fifth Avenue and Smith Street in Brooklyn, for instance, have both seen a spate of new stores selling fashion and unusual home accessories -- chain stores account for much of the expansion in New York's retail industry.

Many shoppers hail the chain stores, saying they offer the kind of products and prices that consumers once had to go to the suburbs to get. But others fear these multinational businesses have destroyed local establishments that once formed the economic backbone of the city and gave it much of its character. Book chains, for example, have helped wipe out cherished local independent bookstores such as Rizzoli's and the Endicott. Rents in malls, as well as demanding specifications written into leases, tend to exclude local businesses of all kinds in favor of chains.

Over the past decade, chain stores have replaced locally owned shops on the Upper West Side. "Midtown Manhattan keeps creeping further north. The big-box stores are replacing the mom-and-pop stores that were our mainstay," Assemblymember Scott Stringer told the Post.

Home Depot has opened two branches in Manhattan, complete with escalators and a concierge. Not even sex shops are locally owned. The first U.S. branch of Myla, an upscale British chain selling erotic wares, opened on Madison Avenue this fall.

There is a surreal aspect to the mushrooming of the chains. Often two Starbucks sit a block from one another. In 2002, Cingular Wireless announced plans to open 200 stores in the New York area. "It's a branding issue more than anything else," Bradley Mendelson, a real estate broker working for Cingular said at the time. "Everybody knows AT&T, and everybody knows VoiceStream. Why do they know them? Because they have stores on the street."

Along with high rents, chain stores seeking to enter Manhattan face community opposition and the search for suitable space. To make things easier, Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1996 proposed changes to city zoning that would have allowed stores under 200,000 square feet, the size of the average Ikea, to be built in manufacturing zones without approval from the City Council. But the City Council overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.

The council has approved individual big box stores, including the Brooklyn Ikea. And some of the stores do not need the council's acceptance. In response to Wal-Mart's possible move to New York, Councilmember Christine Quinn announced that she will propose a bill requiring that the council review plans for any big box store above a certain square footage.

THE BOROUGHS' BIG BOXES

While most big retailers dream of Manhattan, many settle in the boroughs, where there is more space, less cost, and lots of eager shoppers. Last year, real estate broker Chris Conlon estimated that there might be one mall for every 50,000 people on Long Island, compared to one for every 300,000 people in the boroughs. While the figures are rough, they do indicate a gap that stores want to fill.

Shopping malls already thrive in Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn. The Queens Center, which opened in 1973, has had sales per square foot that are triple the national average for malls. The Old Navy at Atlantic Center in Brooklyn has been among that chain's most successful stores. In its first weeks of operation, the new Target at Atlantic Terminal (see related story in the Community Gazettes) "far exceeded our expectations," a store manager told the Times.

Seeing such results, more retailers are coming to the boroughs, including the Bronx. This summer, River Plaza in Marble Hill opened, bringing the Bronx its first Target and its first Starbucks. The borough is "not a well known market, but retailers are beginning to figure it out," David Rosenberg, a real estate broker, told Newsday.

Michael's, a Texas-based chain of crafts stores, will open in Woodside Queens early next year -- and then move on to Manhattan. "Our approach has been to gradually push in further and further to the city," Douglas Sullivan, Michaels's executive vice president for development, told the Times. "That's how Wal-Mart used to describe the strategy . . . surrounding a city and then entering it."

NEW YORK WAL-MART

And now Wal-Mart itself is preparing its foray. The retailer reportedly confirmed last week that it wants to open a New York store in an area of Rego Park that already includes a Target and BestBuy. For years, Wal-Mart had tended to stay away from big, expensive cities because of high labor expenses and the cost of space for its sprawling one-story stores and huge parking lots.

But that did not stop many New Yorkers from forming an opinion about the store. Wal-Mart, with its non-unionized workforce, inexpensive imported merchandise, and willingness to sell guns and ban books, symbolizes what many people dislike about giant chain stores. Opposition emerged almost immediately.

Assemblymember Brian McLaughlin, the president of the Central Labor Council, said the store would come to Queens "over my dead body." An aide to Queens borough president Helen Marshall reportedly expressed concern over gun sales and allegations of charge tends to drive down wages and benefits in other businesses.

That helps explain why urban communities sometimes rise up against Wal-Mart as David against Goliath. Earlier this year, the Chicago City Council vetoed one planned Wal-Mart. While supporters trumpeted the new jobs they said the store would bring to the city, opponents said the jobs would not be good ones. And opponents blocked a Wal-Mart in Inglewood, California, near Los Angeles, when they got the issue put on the ballot.

It remains unclear what Wal-Mart will have to do to get its New York project approved. Whether the New York City Planning Commission and City Council get to review the store depends on the zoning of the site and Wal-Mart's specifics plans, such as parking facilities, according to the Department of City Planning.

ARE CHAIN STORES INEVITABLE?

Not all chain stores succeed. The Wiz electronics chain closed. In 2001, the Gap shut six Manhattan stores. A Waldenbooks and a Gap on Montage Street in Brooklyn Heights are now abandoned storefronts, though other chains may move in. The proposed merger of K-mart and Sears, both with outlets in the city, could result in stores being closed.

And some individual merchants will always strive to offer something different. Unusual stores remain dotted throughout the city, with many in ethnic neighborhoods that serve as magnets to people eager for that spice, vegetable or piece of clothing that reminds them of their heritage."New York is a place of specialty shops," said Joshua Russ Tupper, a member of the fourth generation to run Russ and Daughters, which sells smoked fish, caviar, exotic cheeses and other treats on Houston Street.

Jamaica, Queens, once a victim of decline, now lures shoppers, most of them African American or Caribbean, from as far away as Detroit. They like the clothing, the prices, the crowds, and the stores that sell products geared to the black community that they may find hard to get at home. Of course, Jamaica could fall victim to its own success. Last year both Old Navy and The Gap opened in the neighborhood.

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20041213/200/1209

[billyblancoNYC]

Read somewhere that the site will have two 20 story plus residential buildings above it. Not bad. Glad to see this finally getting developed, just sitting there like that.

[Kris]

December 17, 2004

Critics Seek to Block Plan for Wal-Mart in Queens

By JENNIFER 8. LEE

A proposal to make Rego Park in Queens the site of the city's first Wal-Mart has mobilized labor groups, elected officials and local businesses in an effort to keep it away, even as some area residents say they would welcome its famously low prices.

Wal-Mart announced last week that it is planning to build a 135,000-square-foot store in Rego Park in a parking lot located one block off the bustling Queens Boulevard retail strip. Vornado Realty Trust, a Manhattan commercial real estate company, controls both the lot and a neighboring complex that already houses large stores like Sears, Old Navy, and Bed Bath & Beyond.

Brian M. McLaughlin, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, said that opposition to Wal-Mart is uniting businesses, labor unions, the N.A.A.C.P., immigrant advocacy groups and religious organizations. "We think Wal-Mart is a thread that links us all together," said Mr. McLaughlin, whose group serves as an umbrella for 1.5 million workers in New York City. "Wal-Mart is a buzzword for indecency."

Wal-Mart sells everything from electronics to clothing and has been criticized for driving local competitors out of business, and for the modest wages it pays its workers.

Mia Masten, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the average Wal-Mart full-time wage in urban areas of $10.38 an hour is twice the minimum wage in New York City.

"Looking at small business owners, they are very tenacious, very savvy, flexible and adaptable," said Ms. Masten. "In order for anyone to survive you have to be able to service your customers."

Ruben Cruz, manager of sales at a nearby CompUSA, said representatives from corporate headquarters contacted him as soon as the news broke about the proposed Wal-Mart. Mr. Cruz had to print out the proposed site on MapQuest, color it in and fax it to headquarters. "I'm up in arms and preparing," he said.

But, as if to underscore the varied emotions brought on by the mere mention of the name Wal-Mart, some residents shrugged off the concerns. "It brings shopping, people, business, jobs," said David Mammina, an architect who describes himself as unabashedly "pro-development."

Jon Batash, a doctor who lives and works in the area, said: "They're going to do well. People in this neighborhood all shop at the store that offers the best price. They don't have that much loyalty."

Still, Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a Democrat who represents Rego Park, held a press conference yesterday to voice his opposition to the proposal. "Such purported low costs has high costs for the community," he said.

Wal-Mart, which opens about 300 stores a year, is going into urban areas to maintain the company's growth. It recently received approval to build a store in Chicago, and has also opened a store in Los Angeles. The company is also moving aggressively in the New York metropolitan area, opening a store in Secaucus, N.J., on Oct. 21 and planning to open a store in White Plains.

The Queens Wal-Mart will be subject to the city's months-long land-use approval process, which includes a review by the local community board, the Queens borough president and the City Planning Commission.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

February 10, 2005

As Wal-Mart Plans Foothold, New York Closes Ranks

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/02/10/nyregion/10walmart_lg.jpg
A 132,000-square-foot Wal-Mart, New York City's first, is planned for 2008 on this parking lot in Rego Park, Queens, but labor union leaders, small-business owners and some mayoral candidates plan to oppose it.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/qw.gifal-Mart is eager to make New York City its next frontier," said an East Coast representative of the company, but many New Yorkers seem ready to welcome Wal-Mart as enthusiastically as a frontier town welcomes a desperado.

Small businesses, union leaders, City Council members and even some mayoral candidates are gearing up to prevent Wal-Mart from setting foot in town, now that the world's largest retailer has acknowledged it wants to open its first New York City store, planned for Rego Park, Queens, in 2008.

Vornado Realty Trust, the developer whose proposed shopping complex would include a 132,000-square-foot Wal-Mart, has filed a land-use application with the city, and the approval process is expected to take seven months. But Wal-Mart's opponents are planning to pressure every government body that will consider the application - the community board, the City Planning Commission and the City Council - to reject it.

The fight seems likely to become the biggest battle against a single store in the city's history, because the labor movement sees Wal-Mart as Public Enemy No. 1 since it is so anti-union, and because many small businesses fear that tens of thousands of Wal-Mart-loving consumers will flock to the store, taking millions of dollars in business with them.

"There will never be a more diverse and comprehensive coalition than this effort against Wal-Mart," said Richard Lipsky, spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, an anti-Wal-Mart coalition in New York. "It will include small-business people, labor people, environmental groups, women's groups, immigrant groups and community groups."

One factor that will make the fight unusually intense is that labor has decided that frustrating Wal-Mart's New York ambitions is pivotal to its new, nationwide campaign to pressure the company to improve the way it pays and treats its workers.

"Wal-Mart has come to represent the lowest common denominator in the treatment of working people," said Brian M. McLaughlin, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, the umbrella group of more than one million union members. "Wal-Mart didn't build its empire on bargains. They built it on the backs of working people here and abroad."

Wal-Mart - which says it is looking at more sites in New York - has faced opposition elsewhere, most notably in Chicago and Inglewood, a Los Angeles suburb. Last May, the Chicago City Council voted to allow a Wal-Mart on the city's West Side, but blocked one proposed for the South Side, while in Inglewood voters rejected a Wal-Mart, 60 percent to 40 percent, in a referendum last April.

Nonetheless, company officials seem surprised by the hostility they have encountered here, especially because the city has more than a dozen big-box discount stores.

"I hope we'll be given a fair chance," said Mia Masten, the East Coast representative of Wal-Mart. "We are interested in New York City. With the population there, it would be a wonderful opportunity for us in terms of reaching a customer base we haven't reached yet."

In all this early skirmishing, one not inconsequential group seems largely forgotten: New York's consumers. Many of them love Wal-Mart's low prices.

"I like Wal-Mart," said Sheila Richardson, a correction officer who lives in Corona, Queens, and was shopping last week at the Sears mall across 62nd Drive from the planned Wal-Mart site, which would be a block from the intersection of Queens Boulevard and the Long Island Expressway.

"I'm a shopaholic," she said, "and once a week I drive to Wal-Mart in Hempstead or Westbury and even where I grew up, in Albany. It would be good to have a Wal-Mart nearby."

Danielle Sweetman, a receptionist for Catholic Charities, agreed, saying a Wal-Mart in Queens would spare her the 40-minute drive to the Wal-Mart in Hempstead. "I'm looking forward to Wal-Mart coming," she said. "It has better bargains, and I can get almost anything there."

Steven Malanga, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization, said Wal-Mart's opponents unfairly want to deprive consumers of greater choices. "The nature of the debate is whether New York gets to have the broadest shopping opportunities that exist elsewhere," he said. "Mark Green always did studies showing that stores in New York were ripping off the poor, and then the City Council tries stopping big-box stores. So why do people get ripped off? Because we're restricting competition." Mr. Green was the city's public advocate.

The store is already becoming an issue in this year's mayoral campaign. Two Democratic candidates, Anthony D. Weiner, the congressman who represents Rego Park, and Gifford Miller, the Council's speaker, have voiced opposition to the Wal-Mart store. Mr. Weiner said recently that "Wal-Mart has blazed a path of economic and social destruction in towns throughout the U.S."

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a Republican, appeared to support the Wal-Mart project in his initial comments on the plan, but now mayoral aides say it is by no means a given that he will support it.

"You can't sit there and just say these big stores should not be allowed to be built in this city," he told reporters recently, voicing concern that the city was losing shoppers, jobs and sales tax revenues to big stores in the suburbs.

Wal-Mart executives say they have not signed an official deal with Vornado, and some city officials say that if the heat grows too intense, Wal-Mart may walk away from the project or Vornado may ask it to drop out, hoping to find another tenant that provokes less opposition. Vornado declined to comment.

Officials in the city's planning department are doing an initial review of Vornado's application to see whether all the necessary papers, including a preliminary environmental impact filing, have been submitted. Vornado's application calls for a three-story shopping complex, two 25-story apartment towers and 1,400 parking spaces. The Wal-Mart store, occupying the first floor, would not include a supermarket.

Various approvals, including changes to a previous land-use plan for the site, are needed, planning officials explained, because of the height, the residential use and the expiration of approvals from 1986 for a mall at the site.

Once all the papers are filed, Rego Park's community board is to hold a hearing and submit a recommendation to the planning commission. The Queens borough president can also hold a hearing and make recommendations. After the borough president weighs in, the City Planning Commission must hold a hearing and has 60 days to approve, modify or reject the application. If the commission approves it, the Vornado application goes to the City Council's zoning and franchise subcommittee, then to its land-use committee and then to the whole Council.

The community board and the planning commission are supposed to consider 20 land-use issues, including effects on traffic, air quality and neighboring shopping districts. They are not supposed to consider whether Wal-Mart is antiunion, but the Council's politicians are expected to be mindful of such arguments.

For the community board and city planners, one fear is that Wal-Mart's presence could badly undercut one of the borough's best-known shopping districts, Austin Street in Forest Hills, one mile away.

Lenny Karp, whose family has run Austin Shoes since 1942, voiced fears that Wal-Mart's low prices, high volume and huge name would drive many storeowners under. "I'm a small retailer. How can I compete with them?" he said. "They can devastate a community. We've seen that happen elsewhere. The small-business owner is no match for them."

A customer interrupted to say Mr. Karp's customers would remain loyal, but Mr. Karp said newcomers to the neighborhood might never even visit his store because they might go right to Wal-Mart. "Right now, I work seven days a week now to support my family," he said. "I just don't think it's fair if they come."

Sung Soo Kim, president of the city's Small Business Congress, with 130,000 members, said: "There's a myth that local businesses can be competitive with megastores. Those megastores are category-killing. They cannibalize existing retail merchants."

Perhaps the strongest opposition to Wal-Mart will come from organized labor, which has told City Council members that Wal-Mart pays low wages, provides health insurance to fewer than half its workers, is vehemently antiunion and faces a huge sex-discrimination lawsuit.

Wal-Mart's Ms. Masten said the new store would create over 300 jobs. She said Wal-Mart stores in cities paid $10.38 an hour on average; union officials put the figure around $9.25. She said Wal-Mart offers profit-sharing, a 401(k) plan and affordable health benefits, starting at $40 a month for individual coverage and $155 a month for family coverage.

Noting that Wal-Mart employs 1.2 million Americans, she said, "People wouldn't stay with a company that wasn't providing opportunities and competitive wages and benefits."

Helen Sears, the council member who represents Rego Park, said she had cautioned Wal-Mart officials about their labor practices.

"I've said to them, they are the biggest daddy of all, and if they want to do big things, if they want to do work in our Big Apple, their policies absolutely need to be reviewed," she said. "They have to put something in place that's a little different from what they have now."

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Schadenfrau]

Looks like it's time to circle the wagons.

[Kris]

Not Ready for Wal-Mart (http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/landuse/20050215/12/1321)

[TomAuch]

F*ck WalMart

[ryan]

Wal-Mart has one of the worst records for treatment of its employees. I am totally against it moving in - it destroys shoppibng districts and creates the absolute lowest paying jobs with no benefits. Oh, and don't forget it is a union busting company.

From CTV.ca, regarding the store Walmart is closing to keep from setting a union precedent:
Wal-Mart to close unionized store in Quebec

var byString = ""; var sourceString = "Canadian Press"; if ((sourceString != "") && (byString != "")) { document.write(byString + ", "); } else { document.write(byString); } Canadian Press

MONTREAL — Denying it wants to bust the union, Wal-Mart announced Wednesday it will close a Quebec store whose employees were involved in negotiations to become the first ever to establish a union contract from the world's biggest retailer.

Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Andrew Pelletier said that anyone who assumes the decision was made as an attempt to bust the union "doesn't understand what went on over the past few months. "This store could easily have closed months ago and we didn't do that. We made a determination we were going to bargain in good faith."

The store, which will close in May, is located in Saguenay, about 250 kilometres north of Quebec City. Nearly 200 employees received union accreditation last summer, making it the chain's only unionized outlet at the time.

Pelletier said the company and the United Food & Commercial Workers Canada union had been trying since last October to reach a collective agreement that would allow the store to continue operating. Last week, the union asked Quebec labour officials to appoint a mediator, saying negotiations had reached an impasse.

"Last week, the union ended the collective-bargaining phase of the process and applied for first-contract arbitration," Pelletier said.

"In doing that, they basically acknowledged that the two sides were not going to reach an agreement. First-contract arbitration, within the context of Quebec, means a contract would ultimately be imposed on to the store."

Pelletier said the union's demands on scheduling and employee status would have required the hiring of at least 30 new people and resulted in extra work hours.

"Some of the union's demands failed to appreciate the fragile condition of the Jonquiere (Saguenay) store. The store is already well-staffed and has been struggling economically.

"It's a business decision, it's an economic-viability issue ultimately, but it's been exacerbated through added pressures."

The union representing the workers refused comment and said it would discuss the matter at a news conference Friday.

But Jean-Marc Crevier, a Quebec Federation of Labour spokesman in the region, called the announcement a "very big blow."

"I'm trying to think of what the employees are going through," Crevier said. "I've got goosebumps just thinking of it. It's sad."

Claudia Tremblay, a cashier at the store, said many employees burst into tears when managers told them about the news Wednesday morning.

"Many people cried, including myself," Tremblay, 29, said in an interview.

"I'm a mother of two children and I'm separated from my husband. It's very difficult."

Tremblay said she abstained from the unionization vote, adding she was upset that her non-committal stance won't save her job.

Employees at another Wal-Mart store in St-Hyacinthe, east of Montreal, have also been accredited recently.

Wal-Mart operates two other non-unionized stores in the Saguenay-Lac St-Jean region.

The union efforts at both stores are part of a larger chess game labour organizers are waging with Wal-Mart at stores across Canada. The campaign, financed by UFCW money from both Canada and the United States, is also geared to capture the attention of workers in Wal-Mart's home country.

The closest a U.S. union has ever come to winning a battle with Wal-Mart was in 2000, at a store in Jacksonville, Texas. In that store, 11 workers - all members of the store's meatpacking department - voted to join and be represented by the UFCW.

That effort failed when Wal-Mart eliminated the job of meatcutter companywide, and moved away from in-store meatcutting to stocking only pre-wrapped meat.

Recently, some workers in the tire department of a Wal-Mart store in Colorado have sought union representation, and the U.S. National Labor Relations Board has said it intends to schedule a vote.

Wal-Mart's world headquarters are based in Arkansas. Its Canadian division, whose head office is in Mississauga, Ont., operates 256 stores and six Sam's Clubs across Canada with more than 70,000 employees.

[Kris]

February 20, 2005

THE CITY

Big Challenge for a Big Box

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/t.gifhe tension between suburban-style big-box stores and the deeply urban environs of New York City has already spawned a raft of land-use squabbles. But now the biggest box of them all, Wal-Mart, has its eye on a site in Queens. As it argues its case, the world's largest retailer may have found something it cannot discount: local concerns about traffic and the environment coupled with anger over Wal-Mart's questionable labor practices.

It's not that the city is totally averse to big-box stores. New Yorkers like bargains as much as anyone else, particularly if the location is right. BJ's Wholesale Club successfully built stores in Brooklyn and Queens before retreating in the face of opposition to its plans to expand into the Bronx. But traffic concerns in particular can raise the hackles of local residents who are already gridlocked for much of their waking lives. Ikea, the home-furnishing store based in Sweden, won the city's approval last October to build in Red Hook in Brooklyn, but now it is under fire over traffic and other environmental issues, and opponents have sued to have its permission revoked. The Rego Park lot where a Wal-Mart could be built as part of a larger development is just a short walk from Queens Boulevard, a traffic nightmare where some 85 pedestrians have died in the last 20 years. The area is already stuffed with high-rise rentals and co-ops and a carnival of shopping that includes the city's biggest mall. The suitability of a big-box store in that neighborhood will be weighed by the City Council Land Use Committee, which considers development plans for their impact on roads and transportation. The committee is a large hurdle such projects must negotiate, and it's where the Bronx BJ's was rejected, ostensibly over traffic worries.

The Council is not supposed to extend its review to things like working conditions, but it would have been hard for local politicians to ignore the outcry over the fact that BJ's is nonunion and was forced by the Department of Labor to pay workers who were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime. Wal-Mart recently closed a store in Quebec after its workers organized the first union in the chain.

It makes little sense to block a store just because its employees don't have union protection when thousands of stores in the city aren't unionized - including many of the small businesses that complain when the big discounters move in. However, when a company lobbies to win the special zoning needed to locate in New York, arguing that it will create jobs, it's natural to look at the quality of the employment offered. Wal-Mart has drawn attention to itself for practices like locking in employees overnight to prevent theft. It recently had to pay to settle charges it violated child labor laws and the chain faces an enormous sex-discrimination lawsuit. Its wages are low - about $10 an hour in urban areas. It offers insurance coverage but priced out of reach for many; only half of its employees sign up for it. That means taxpayers ultimately bear the burden of uninsured workers who need medical care.

The company says it is looking at several other sites - including, perhaps, the Bronx location that BJ's abandoned. Having already saturated the market in many parts of the country, it is determined to tap into the huge local population of shoppers. But if Wal-Mart wants to make it here, it needs to know this: In New York, it has met one tough customer.

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Kris]

February 24, 2005

Developer Drops Plan for City's First Wal-Mart

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/02/24/nyregion/walmart.184.583.jpg
Whatever eventually rises on this site in Rego Park, Queens, the city's first Wal-Mart will not be part of it.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/f.gifacing intense opposition, a large real estate developer has dropped its plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a Queens shopping complex, thwarting Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City, city officials and real estate executives said yesterday.

The decision by the developer, Vornado Realty Trust, is a blow to Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and comes after company officials said that New York City was an important new frontier in which Wal-Mart was eager to expand.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the company was still exploring other sites in the city, but the possibility that the company would open a 132,000-square-foot store in Queens had immediately stirred a storm of opposition by neighborhood, labor and environmental groups as well as small businesses. Wal-Mart also faced opposition from many City Council members and several members of Congress.

Labor unions fought Wal-Mart with a special intensity because they believe its wage levels and benefits are pulling down standards for workers through the United States.

Melinda Katz, chairwoman of the Council's Land Use Committee, said a Vornado representative informed her yesterday that Vornado was no longer negotiating with Wal-Mart for it to be part of the mall planned for Rego Park, Queens, in 2008.

"I think they just decided it's not worth the complications of having Wal-Mart," Ms. Katz said. "The idea of Wal-Mart was overshadowing what could very well be a good project."

Roanne Kulakoff, a Vornado spokeswoman, declined to comment, except to say there was never a formal deal between Vornado and Wal-Mart. But one executive briefed on the talks between Vornado and Wal-Mart said Vornado had concluded that keeping Wal-Mart would jeopardize the city's approval of a large, ambitious project that included other stores and two 25-story apartment towers.

"There were people who felt it was a major risk for the project," said the executive, who asked not to be identified in order not to anger either side.

The executive said Vornado had originally hoped that city planning officials would approve the Rego Park project before it before it became publicly known that Wal-Mart was involved. But once Wal-Mart's participation became public, the opposition mushroomed, and the fight was shaping up to be the biggest battle against a single store in the city's history.

Small-business advocates declared victory after the decision was made public, but predicted that the battle would resume in other neighborhoods. "Vornado saw the writing on the wall and responded the way a developer needs to when he knows he's holding a losing hand," said Richard Lipsky, spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, an anti-Wal-Mart coalition in New York. "We stopped Wal-Mart this time, but they are going to continue their efforts to open in New York and we will be sure to meet that with significant opposition wherever else they try to locate."

Mia Masten, Wal-Mart's director of corporate affairs for the Eastern region, sought to downplay yesterday's developments. She noted that Vornado and Wal-Mart had never signed a formal deal to include Wal-Mart in the complex, planned to be built near the intersection of Queens Boulevard and the Long Island Expressway. Nonetheless, city planning officials and City Council members said Vornado had told them that it wanted to include Wal-Mart.

"We never had a deal," Ms. Masten said, adding that Wal-Mart remains interested in opening stores in New York City. "In fact, we continue to explore a number of possible sites throughout the five boroughs," she said. "Until we have an executed agreement for a specific site, we will not comment on any ongoing negotiations."

Ms. Masten declined to say whether Vornado had dropped Wal-Mart from the project or whether Wal-Mart had pulled out voluntarily. Wal-Mart's opponents said that Vornado might have been swayed in part by a unanimous vote of the City Council's Land Use Committee two weeks ago to block a B.J.'s Wholesale Club in the Bronx. In the face of intense lobbying by environmental, community and labor groups, the committee overruled the local planning board and the borough president.

Several shoppers interviewed yesterday in Rego Park said they were disappointed that a Wal-Mart would not be coming to the neighborhood, noting that many Queens residents now travel to Long Island to take advantage of the store's low prices.

"It would've been good if we had a Wal-Mart near by because then we wouldn't have to travel outside the area," said Rolando Sands, 21, a soft drink deliverer from Jamaica, Queens. "We'd be able to keep the money in the Queens community instead of Long Island."

Corinth King, 45, a traffic enforcement agent from Rego Park, said she had been looking forward to the store's variety. "They have a lot of good sales," she said. "I like it for things for the bathroom and the kitchen. They have a wide variety. I'm going to miss it."

But shoppers did not form an organized group to support Wal-Mart.

Helen Sears, the City Council member representing Rego Park, had warned Wal-Mart, which has several stores in the suburbs surrounding the city, that to win approval in the city itself, it needed to improve its wages, health benefits and pensions and end its vehement stance against unions.

"I am hopeful that if Wal-Mart attempts to locate another site, whether in Queens or Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan or Staten Island, that its officials work tirelessly to improve workplace benefits and conditions so that New York City will welcome it with open arms," Ms. Sears said. "Until then, we can only offer our backs."

Small-business owners had voiced fears that opening a Wal-Mart in Queens would push hardware stores, shoe stores and many apparel shops out of business, as has been the case in many small towns where Wal-Mart is dominant. Company officials said the store would bring low prices to New Yorkers and would create more than 300 jobs.

City Hall officials declined yesterday to discuss the Wal-Mart matter. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appeared at first to back the project, saying that it was wrong to simply say that warehouse-type stores should not be allowed in the city. But his aides later said that it was not at all clear that he would ultimately support the project.

Charles V. Bagli and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Ninjahedge]

The irony of this being that there are already stores like Home Depot and Bed and Bath that are chaining out all the mom and pops in that area to begin with.

Queens wants to be like NJ, a mall on every corner, only more crowded.

[TLOZ Link5]

Home Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond are stores that collectively serve a single purpose: home improvement, Home Depot providing hardware and BB&B accessories like blankets and cleaning supplies. Walmart sells everything from groceries to clothing to guns; it would not have been just another box but the final nail in the coffin, affecting a much larger range of specially-focused retailers.

[Ninjahedge]

You mean Duane Reed would not stand a chance?

;)

[AmeriKenArtist]

I just saw the report on television. Are there any Wal-Mart stores just outside of NY City limits?

[TLOZ Link5]

You mean Duane Reed would not stand a chance?

;)

Duane Reade is a drugstore/pharmacy. It sells some groceries, i.e. milk, eggs, etc. But it has no clothes, produce, bread...the list goes on. Big boxes and chain stores in general irk me (CVS in the Village? Uh-uh), but I reserve a lot of ire for large discount stores like Walmart. Walmart is convenient and cheap, yes, but it destroys the diversity, specialization, and relative intimacy of shopping that New York thrives on and is famous for.

[Ninjahedge]

I know.

I was just being a noodge.

Thing is, I do not like any of these national chains and their buisness practices.

There are some that are part and parcel (Macys et. all.), but others (like Crate and Barrel) that have little place in the city besides just making it easier than going to NJ for THE EXACT SAME CRAP.

My DR example was that WalMart would DEFINITELY be detrimenal to shops like DR, which, ironically, is one of the stores doing the same thing to all the smaller convenience/drug stores in the area in the first place....

:P

[ZippyTheChimp]

February 28, 2005

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Don't Blame Wal-Mart

By ROBERT B. REICH

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/b.giferkeley, Calif. — BOWING to intense pressure from neighborhood and labor groups, a real estate developer has just given up plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a mall in Queens, thereby blocking Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City. In the eyes of Wal-Mart's detractors, the Arkansas-based chain embodies the worst kind of economic exploitation: it pays its 1.2 million American workers an average of only $9.68 an hour, doesn't provide most of them with health insurance, keeps out unions, has a checkered history on labor law and turns main streets into ghost towns by sucking business away from small retailers.

But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it's not as if Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world's largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there.

Instead, Wal-Mart has lured customers with low prices. "We expect our suppliers to drive the costs out of the supply chain," a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said. "It's good for us and good for them."

Wal-Mart may have perfected this technique, but you can find it almost everywhere these days. Corporations are in fierce competition to get and keep customers, so they pass the bulk of their cost cuts through to consumers as lower prices. Products are manufactured in China at a fraction of the cost of making them here, and American consumers get great deals. Back-office work, along with computer programming and data crunching, is "offshored" to India, so our dollars go even further.

Meanwhile, many of us pressure companies to give us even better bargains. I look on the Internet to find the lowest price I can and buy airline tickets, books, merchandise from just about anywhere with a click of a mouse. Don't you?

The fact is, today's economy offers us a Faustian bargain: it can give consumers deals largely because it hammers workers and communities.

We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.

But you and I aren't just consumers. We're also workers and citizens. How do we strike the right balance? To claim that people shouldn't have access to Wal-Mart or to cut-rate airfares or services from India or to Internet shopping, because these somehow reduce their quality of life, is paternalistic tripe. No one is a better judge of what people want than they themselves.

The problem is, the choices we make in the market don't fully reflect our values as workers or as citizens. I didn't want our community bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., to close (as it did last fall) yet I still bought lots of books from Amazon.com (http://amazon.com/). In addition, we may not see the larger bargain when our own job or community isn't directly at stake. I don't like what's happening to airline workers, but I still try for the cheapest fare I can get.

The only way for the workers or citizens in us to trump the consumers in us is through laws and regulations that make our purchases a social choice as well as a personal one. A requirement that companies with more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance, for example, might increase slightly the price of their goods and services. My inner consumer won't like that very much, but the worker in me thinks it a fair price to pay. Same with an increase in the minimum wage or a change in labor laws making it easier for employees to organize and negotiate better terms.

I wouldn't go so far as to re-regulate the airline industry or hobble free trade with China and India - that would cost me as a consumer far too much - but I'd like the government to offer wage insurance to ease the pain of sudden losses of pay. And I'd support labor standards that make trade agreements a bit more fair.

These provisions might end up costing me some money, but the citizen in me thinks they are worth the price. You might think differently, but as a nation we aren't even having this sort of discussion. Instead, our debates about economic change take place between two warring camps: those who want the best consumer deals, and those who want to preserve jobs and communities much as they are. Instead of finding ways to soften the blows, compensate the losers or slow the pace of change - so the consumers in us can enjoy lower prices and better products without wreaking too much damage on us in our role as workers and citizens - we go to battle.

I don't know if Wal-Mart will ever make it into New York City. I do know that New Yorkers, like most other Americans, want the great deals that can be had in a rapidly globalizing high-tech economy. Yet the prices on sales tags don't reflect the full prices we have to pay as workers and citizens. A sensible public debate would focus on how to make that total price as low as possible.



Robert B. Reich, the author of "Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America," was secretary of labor from 1993 to 1997.


Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Kris]

March 1, 2005

NYC

Wal-Mart Is Rebuffed but Waiting

By CLYDE HABERMAN

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/w.gifAL-MART has discovered the unpleasant flip side of the city's unofficial anthem, "New York, New York." Making it anywhere doesn't mean you can make it here. The mammoth retailer's plans for a New York beachhead have gone the way of Martin Scorsese's latest dream of an Oscar - down in flames.

Wal-Mart was to be part of a new shopping mall in Rego Park, Queens. That was before an alliance of labor unions, small businesses, environmentalists and neighborhood groups persuaded politicians that this was the worst idea since Lincoln chose to take in a play.

With the City Council getting ready to give it a hard time, the mall's developer decided that running into walls was not worth the pain. It dropped Wal-Mart from the project.

Never mind the usual concerns about traffic and the collapse of mom-and-pop stores. Wal-Mart's child-labor practices, its aggressive anti-union philosophy and its imperious air were all guaranteed to punch the alarm buttons of New York politicians given to social engineering.

The fact that many Americans happen to like Wal-Mart because it keeps prices down got relatively scant attention. While they prefer to see themselves as a breed apart, New Yorkers have been known to enjoy low prices themselves.

For that reason alone, even some of the mega-chain's most fervent opponents assume they have not heard the last from it. This is too big a market for Wal-Mart to ignore, and Wal-Mart is in certain respects too seductive a retailer for New York to snub. Don't be surprised, some say, if the company mends its ways just enough to pass political muster.

"Sooner or later, New Yorkers will want to have access to the shopping choices that other Americans have, rather than have to go to the suburbs," said Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University and an informal adviser to the mayor.

It might help to take a short journey through time, back to the early 1970's, when McDonald's made its first inroads here. The issues then were different from today's. But the attitude of many New Yorkers was much the same: the barbarians were at the gates and had to be repelled.

Not that the city was unfamiliar with fast-food operations. It had the likes of Nedick's, White Castle, White Tower and Chock full o'Nuts. But McDonald's terrified people. Protesters marched through Greenwich Village. Upper East Siders rallied. The end, all agreed, was near.

Typical was the lament of a woman who appeared in 1974 at a community board hearing to oppose a planned McDonald's franchise on East 66th Street. "It would be a smelly, noisy pestilence," she said, predicting plagues of rats, garbage and exhaust fumes. No less worrisome, she predicted, were the unsavory types "who would hang around such a place."

One man rose to add his own battle cry. "Winston Churchill," he said, "gave the boys at Eton just six words of advice: 'Don't give up. Never, never, never.' "

So much for those playing fields.

In case you didn't notice, the golden arches are everywhere in the five boroughs - 250 outlets, the company says. Somehow, the city has managed not to collapse. Nor have McDonald's employees been observed waylaying people on the street and dragging them inside to be force-fed Egg McMuffins.

Quite simply, many people enjoy eating there. And they might similarly want to shop at Wal-Mart if given the chance.

McDONALD'S did have to tinker with its formula somewhat to fit in here - abandoning drive-through restaurants in most locations, for instance, and making sure that sidewalks were swept.

"Where there has been a will and a sense of local character, many of these stores have adjusted to community forms and demands," said Roberta Brandes Gratz, a member of the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission and the author of books on how cities have renewed themselves.

The Home Depot outlet on West 23rd Street, Ms. Gratz said, is an example of a chain that adapted to New York ways by offering home delivery and providing attractive front windows. Even Wal-Mart has recalibrated its big-box formula, she said, to accommodate environment-conscious people in places like Bennington, Vt.

There is no reason the same could not happen here, she and Professor Moss agreed. "Let the opponents bring Wal-Mart into the tent the right way rather than expecting that they'll keep it out forever," Ms. Gratz said. "Because they won't."

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Ninjahedge]

I think most see Wal-Mart as the kid in a candy shop, or free ciggs at a middle school.

Seriously, if it came in, they know that it WOULD be successful due to the predominance of people that would shop there despite the fact that it would be putting many of their neighbors out of buisness.


It is easier to obstruct initial construction or establishment of a chain like this than to prevent people from going to it once it is there.. As the post/article two posts up said, some things need to be regulated a bit more even if they do give a bit of that burden back to the consumer.

In the long run it ends up helping all of us rather than the few that need their roll-back fix from the flying polkadot.

[TonyO]

There is no question Walmart is just waiting and they are intent on coming to the 5 boroughs. Last night I got a "survey" call, obviously sponsored by Walmart due to the questions. They wanted to know what was most damaging news-wise to the company (ie. low wages, healthcare, etc.) and some parallel things like opinions on the mayor and unions.

The questions seemed to insist that their stores create jobs. I am not sold on this. One thing I wasn't aware of was that Warren Buffett is very pro-Walmart...a plus in my book.

[Ninjahedge]

It's a classic.

It does create jobs, but on average, the jobs provide less and pay less to the worker.

They are in the buisness of making money, and the most expensive thing for a store is usually staff.

So, what is the best way to cut costs to the consumer? Make sure that 75% of your staff is JUST below full time so no federal standards about pay and benefits come into play, and the ones that DO have benefits, salary them and give them extended hours.


Combine that with BILLIONS spent on advertising and you get people to believe that WalMart is filled with smiling employees, flying Yellow Dots and talking Cookies.

[Schadenfrau]

Don't forget the sweet-natured old men who are just gosh-darned THRILLED to work there.

[alex ballard]

Here's the thing, when McD's came to the city, I'm sure they said that would effectivley kill the small resturants, but the fact is, they're here and growing. The beauty of NY is everything finds a nitch here. Some of the more middle class residents would approve of Wal-Mart, while others might go to smaller stores. People tend to stick to loyaties, so I don't really think small businesses will go by the wayside. Also, the more shoppers this pulls in to Queens, the more people will come by the small stores anyway. The thing is, NYers make a lot more money than in smalltownUSA. So everyone will get thier piece. And NYers can be picky to, I bet Wal-Mart won't have an easy time getting people to "Buy Chinese".

[Ninjahedge]

I think they will find it hard to do a lot of things, but since they are not a specialty store, they will have no problem getting people in there.

What it WILL kill is just about any Korean/Chinese grocery outside of Elmherst or Manhattan proper. It will give Century 21 a run for its money in things such as housewears, and it will do very well in the generic food market. (they don't do too well in my area seeing how Shop Rite is cheaper most of the time).


So if people want to keep WM out of NYC, I have no problem wth it. I do not want Eddie Bauer, the Gap, a THIRD starbucks, a FOURTH dunkin donuts, crate and barrel, au bon pain and all its bretheren to open up in Hoboken, but it is slowly headingthere.

If they open a Taco Bell, I seriously am going to start looking for somewhere else to live!!! ;)

[normaldude]

March 01, 2005

Bloomberg backs Wal-Mart
by Anne Michaud

Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city should not be in the business of telling Wal-Mart or any other company whether it can locate here. Unions and some retailers are mobilizing to block Wal-Mart's entry into the city, and legislation is pending in the City Council to make it impossible for Wal-Mart to open stores in New York. But the mayor told a special Crain's Breakfast forum on Tuesday that such decisions are bad business, which drew applause from the audience of more than 800. He added that there need to be some protections for small businesses that served the city in worse times.

On the topic of education, the mayor suggested that his ability to win concessions from the teachers' union is very limited, while reiterating that changes are needed in the teachers contract to improve the schools. He noted that with a $3 billion budget gap looming, the city does not have "a secret pot of money" to give teachers for raises in return for concessions on other issues. The mayor also noted that while the teachers are prohibited from striking, the law also keeps the current contract in place during negotiations, allowing either side to stall changes. "We have got to make it in (UFT chief) Randi Weingarten's best interest" to agree to reforms, Mr. Bloomberg said.

Speaking about his career path, the mayor acknowledged his limitations as a politician. Asked whether he has learned to become less the billionaire and more the politician during his first term, Mr. Bloomberg responded, "We're doing an experiment right now, and it depends on the voters. We'll find out whether it worked on Nov. 8."

http://www.crainsny.com/news.cms?id=10055

[Kris]

Intelligencer

Big-Boxed Out

Richard Lipsky, retail insurgent, helped drive Wal-Mart out of Queens. How does he turn back the tide of shopping gigantism?

By Greg Sargent (http://newyorkmetro.com/nymag/author_sargent)

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/richardlipsky050228_175.jpg
(Photo credit: Todd Selby)

Richard Lipsky has absolutely no desire to buy paper towels in bulk at some megamart. And he doesn’t want New Yorkers to, either. The lobbyist for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance—a coalition of small supermarkets, Korean delis, and bodegas—his speciality is blocking big-box superstores from setting up shop in the city. So far, he’s defeated three Costcos and a BJ’s, and last week, he crushed Vornado Realty Trust’s plans for a Wal-Mart in Queens, simply by fomenting enough of a fuss. Greg Sargent spoke with Lipsky.

Surely Wal-Mart hasn’t given up on New York that easy.
Vornado pulled the plug without a fight. It was a suicide before the execution. I don’t think we’ve seen the real Wal-Mart yet. They have resources, intelligence, and they’ll learn the landscape. Wal-Mart is like the Death Star—you can wipe them out, but they’ll be back.

How do you mobilize for a counterattack?
You have to identify the little mayors, the caretakers of localized customs and traditions who are aggressively protective of their neighborhoods. Your message can’t be just about jobs. That gets labor on your side, but the key is combining a left-wing populist message with a conservative populist one about neighborhood character. [That’s] the music that makes the elected officials want to dance.

But don’t the big boxes bring jobs to neighborhoods?
They pay much less than the ones they displace by driving out new immigrant supermarkets and smaller chains like C-Town, which are unionized.

New York already has lots of national chains. And they are cheap. Isn’t this a losing battle?
We still have 180,000 mom-and-pop retailers in the city. In the seventies, a lot of chains fled like hell from urban blight, leaving neighborhood retail strips in shambles. Into the vacuum came waves of Dominicans, Koreans, Chinese. The chains and big-box stores wouldn’t be making a move on New York if these little guys hadn’t made the terrain safe for them.

Aren’t you just making money telling these smaller businesses that they should fear Wal-Mart and pay you to defeat it?
They don’t need me to be afraid of Wal-Mart.

You live in Rockland County, land of shopping plazas. You never hit a Supercenter?
The biggest store I shop at is the local C-Town. You can check my credit-card receipts.

Find this article at:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/11273/index.html

[Kris]

March 3, 2005

Wal-Mart Shoppers: What's the Real Price? (6 Letters)

To the Editor:

"Don't Blame Wal-Mart," by Robert B. Reich (Op-Ed, Feb. 28), suggests that the best way to forestall the substantial economic and social problems associated with Wal-Mart is to change federal labor and offshoring laws.

That's a good idea, but since we don't all have a finger on those legislative buttons, our best alternative is to exercise the consumer-citizen choice he describes in favor of the citizen - and say "no" to Wal-Mart in New York.

Mr. Reich says that he loves a deal but bemoans the negative effects that come with it. Some of us prefer not to be tempted.

Now Wal-Mart knows that if it wants to do business here, it does it our way or not at all. And we don't have to rely on the creaky legislative process to accomplish this.

Mark Solomon
New York, Feb. 28, 2005

•

To the Editor:

Robert B. Reich misses a critical point. Wal-Mart puts pressure on its suppliers to cut costs to ensure that its customers' needs are filled most "economically."

Consequently, even more of our products and services are declining in quality, poor quality has become acceptable and we've become a throw-away society.

Indeed, small suppliers have been "thrown away" by Wal-Mart when they could cut costs no further.

Waste and low quality, then, join the low wages of most of Wal-Mart's 1.2 million American employees. All three negatively affect our society and economy.

Wal-Mart contributes hugely to the substandard quality of life of millions of our citizens.

Yes, I blame Wal-Mart.

Linda Nottingham
Statesboro, Ga., Feb. 28, 2005
The writer is an assistant professor of management at Georgia Southern University.

•

To the Editor:

Re "Don't Blame Wal-Mart," by Robert B. Reich (Op-Ed, Feb. 28):

Our family has been in the retail hardware business for almost 84 years, and in the current atmosphere of shifting buying habits, we are for the first time experiencing the dilemma described by Mr. Reich: how to maintain fair wages and benefits for our staff while keeping our prices competitive.

The price that customers pay is demonstrated in what has been happening around the country: as local retailers disappear from Main Street, customers have to travel farther for their merchandise.

Harry Tarzian
Brooklyn, Feb. 28, 2005

•

To the Editor:

I part with Robert B. Reich when he tells us that we need more government regulation to ensure that our values are properly represented in the marketplace.

If Mr. Reich and his Cambridge neighbors had really cared about their local independent bookstore, they would have continued shopping there, willingly paying a few more dollars for their books.

But as he tells us, they didn't. And it's not the government's place to decide that these citizens' values weren't given full accord.

Moreover, when government acts to defend people's values, whose values should it choose? Mr. Reich's, mine or someone else's?

John V. Kjellman
Henniker, N.H., Feb. 28, 2005

•

To the Editor:

Robert B. Reich makes a good argument about the Faustian bargain we make as both consumers and workers.

But he does not mention the other side of the equation, that Wal-Mart is also engaged in such a bargain. After all, the natural result of the Wal-Mart strategy would be to eliminate the ability of American workers to afford to shop at these stores.

As a corporation - and as a major economic force - Wal-Mart has a duty to act in a socially responsible manner. I'm sure that if Wal-Mart were to provide the benefits Mr. Reich recommends, its shoppers would be more than happy to pay a few cents more for their purchases.

Tim Brill
Ithaca, N.Y., March 1, 2005

•

To the Editor:

Won't the laws and regulations that Robert B. Reich ("Don't Blame Wal-Mart," Op-Ed, Feb. 28) proposes accelerate the movement of American jobs to lower-cost parts of the world?

If so, his solution might worsen this problem.

Lou Kirschbaum
Largo, Fla., Feb. 28, 2005

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[TonyO]

NYSun

March 3, 2005

Wal-Mart Exploring Staten Island
BY DANIELA GERSON - Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 3, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/9990

Wal-Mart is back.

Less than a week after a developer disclosed it had dropped plans to build the retail giant's first New York store, Wal-Mart is considering two sites on Staten Island.

Apparently, one defeat in Queens and a hostile City Hall was not enough to scare the world's largest retailer away from the New York City market.

One property is near the Outerbridge Crossing in Richmond Valley and the other borders South and Forest avenues in Mariners Harbor, the Staten Island Advance reported yesterday. Wal-Mart refused to comment on any specific development plans for the city. Instead, in a statement, the company reaffirmed its commitment to explore sites in all five boroughs.

With big-box stores having struggled recently to set up shop in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, Staten Island is considered the borough of least resistance for large retailers. The borough, which has grown by about 500,000 residents during the past decade, is in need of more retail options to accommodate its growing population and has the space available for such development, according to its chamber of commerce.

"In the Staten Island community I think the message is the residents here want to be able to buy locally and not to be forced to go to another state," a former Staten Island borough president, Guy Molinari, said. "Certainly from the New York City perspective it's far better to be able to have jobs created here."

The Richmond Valley property is an 18-acre abandoned industrial site near the southern tip of the island.

"It's a blighted polluted brownfield," a Republican council member representing the South Shore of Staten Island, Andrew Lanza, said. "I think there's potential for a positive impact on the borough in turning this site around and creating jobs."

Mr. Lanza said he has been working with the developer, Tim Harrison, a partner in South Avenue Development LLC, for more than a month to negotiate use of the site.

Mr. Harrison did not return calls for comment.

Mr. Lanza said the developer has told him Wal-Mart is committed to working very closely with the community and has been receptive to ideas that include a vision for a store very different than the typical sterile big box, complete with Victorian lighting and special landscaping.

The other site, part of a 27-acre spot on Mariners Harbor, appears to be earlier on in the development stage and could face more opposition.

"The developer is still negotiating with different people including Wal-Mart," the broker handling the Mariner Harbor site, Daniel Masters Sr., said yesterday. Mr. Masters said the Texas-based developer, who asked not to disclose his identity, has not expressed concern about community or local political opposition to a Wal-Mart store. "I've heard from someone on the [community planning] board and said they would like to see something like it. It's right near the Home Depot and from what I understand Home Depot is one of the best that they have in terms of sales."

The council member representing the North Shore, Michael McMahon, a Democrat, said he thinks differently. Mr. McMahon, who indicated that the developer has yet to contact him, said he would oppose any plan unless Wal-Mart worked with the community and followed a model similar to Ikea's recent successful bid in Brooklyn.

"Given Wal-Mart's current employment practices, I don't think that the city should extend to it any special considerations such as a zoning change that would allow it to locate a store," Mr. McMahon said, adding he would fight to prevent any such zoning changes or special permits. "Some people like the idea of Wal-Mart because they want to be able to shop there, but they have to realize that because of the way that Wal-Mart treats its employees, the city as a whole would lose money because it would have to make up the difference for benefits for health care and things like food stamps."

This type of criticism of Wal-Mart surfaced in two previous City Hall hearings this year after negotiations for the Queens site were announced and is reportedly what pushed the developer, Vornado Realty Trust, to pull out of negotiations. Both Staten Island sites would require the City Council to approve a zone change or special permit before a retailer of Wal-Mart's size could open there.

Mayor Bloomberg scored the council on Tuesday regarding the backlash against big-box stores, saying, "The City Council should not be picking and choosing which companies come into this city."

A leader of the loosely-formed alliance of Wal-Mart detractors, including small-business leaders, mayoral candidates, and organized labor, is the president of the New York City Central Labor Council, Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin of Queens. Wal-Mart, which has no unions in its American stores, has been the target of a national campaign by organized labor.

"Basically, the largest employer in the country pays low wages and provides weak benefits, and it is a drag or a weight on the wages and conditions in the rest of the retail industry," Mr. McLaughlin said.

Wal-Mart says it pays its workers an average of $9.68 an hour with slightly higher wages in metropolitan areas. The company says 86% of its full-time workers have health insurance, 56% of them through the company.

Critics say Wal-Mart defines fulltime workers under a 40-hour workweek and that the average pay of a sales clerk falls below $9.68 an hour, which puts those employees below the poverty line, thereby qualifying them for public benefits.

[billyblancoNYC]

Does anyone know of chains, including fast food, that offer high wages and great benefits? While I am not a fan of the maillification of NY, or Wal-Mart for that matter, it just looks like another case of union bullshit and political pandering to them. I'm sure there are tons of low to middle class people that would love and benefit from a Wal-mart. People in Queens just go to Hampstead anyway.

[BrooklynRider]

Target and Home Depot are two good examples of reportedly decent places for workers, good benefits, and an unassailable track record of good corporate and community citizenship.

[Ninjahedge]

PS, I am not a fan of the fast food restaurants either.

I would rather have a good italian deli, a greek diner and the like than a BK, Taco Bell and all the rest.

If I want those, there are plenty of "food courts" in NJ I can find them in.

[alex ballard]

While Wal-Mart is evil, they still deserve any right as any to build in the city. This is the capital of commerce and democracy anyway, so they should have a fair shot.

Also, the money saved by NYers would go for more spending on fun stuff that really helps the city economy and could even serve to cause a ripple effect making NYC less expensive.

[TonyO]

NYTimes
February 27, 2005

Wal-Mart's Profits: Nearly $20,000 (Per Minute, That Is)

By HUBERT B. HERRING

Say what you will about Wal-Mart - and critics say plenty, about its wages, its working conditions and its bulldozer impact on smaller "old economy" stores unlucky enough to lie in its path - but it has created an astounding money machine.

It recently reported that for the latest fiscal year, it had profits - not sales, but profits - of $10.3 billion. But, of course, that's one of those disembodied corporate numbers that mere mortals with $307.63 in their checking accounts can have trouble getting their minds around.

So look at it this way, and imagine a triumphant chorus of ringing cash registers as accompaniment: Every minute, around the clock, this colossus of commerce earns an average of nearly $20,000. And that profit comes without a store in New York City, where opposition prompted Wal-Mart last week to scrap a plan for a store in Queens.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/02/27/business/27count.inline.gif
When you consider that its profit margins must be razor-thin to keep prices low, that's a mind-boggling amount of stuff changing hands.

[alex ballard]

NYTimes
February 27, 2005

Wal-Mart's Profits: Nearly $20,000 (Per Minute, That Is)

By HUBERT B. HERRING

Say what you will about Wal-Mart - and critics say plenty, about its wages, its working conditions and its bulldozer impact on smaller "old economy" stores unlucky enough to lie in its path - but it has created an astounding money machine.

It recently reported that for the latest fiscal year, it had profits - not sales, but profits - of $10.3 billion. But, of course, that's one of those disembodied corporate numbers that mere mortals with $307.63 in their checking accounts can have trouble getting their minds around.

So look at it this way, and imagine a triumphant chorus of ringing cash registers as accompaniment: Every minute, around the clock, this colossus of commerce earns an average of nearly $20,000. And that profit comes without a store in New York City, where opposition prompted Wal-Mart last week to scrap a plan for a store in Queens.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/02/27/business/27count.inline.gif
When you consider that its profit margins must be razor-thin to keep prices low, that's a mind-boggling amount of stuff changing hands.


But in pure size, Those other two stores are close by. I mean, Wal-Mart must have 5,000 stores. Target I venture to say has 1,000. So when you factor that in, it's not as "runaway" as one might think...

[Kris]

March 7, 2005

New Math at Wal-Mart

To the Editor:

Re "Don't Blame Wal-Mart," by Robert B. Reich (Op-Ed, Feb. 28):

If Wal-Mart offered high-paying union jobs, as do the auto industry and the government, it would be seen as a savior in small towns and welcomed into big cities.

Would increasing wages cripple the company? If the wages of Wal-Mart's 1.2 million workers were increased to $25 an hour (from about $10), the company's costs would go up by about $36 billion.

Passing on that increase to consumers would add about 12 percent to the company's current annual revenues.

Therein lies the choice: jobs that pay about $50,000 a year for more than a million Americans, or a 12 percent discount on Gummy bears and barbecue grills.

William Seay
Nyack, N.Y., March 1, 2005
The writer, a psychologist, is a union representative for the New York State Public Employees' Federation.

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[TonyO]

Crain's

Wal-Mart: anatomy of a takedown

How activists kept controversial big-box store from entering Rego Park--for now

By Tommy Fernandez
Published on March 07, 2005


In December, lobbyist Richard Lipsky read the newspaper headlines about Wal-Mart's plans to enter Queens and exclaimed, "We're ready for this fight!"

In this case, "we" included community activists, labor leaders and members of the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, a citywide coalition of small-store owners. The day he read the news, Mr. Lipsky called his compatriots to set an anti-Wal-Mart effort in motion.


To their delight, Mr. Lipsky and his fellow activists found no shortage of supporters.

"If you are an immigrant advocate, a member of the clergy, a labor leader or an elected official, then you have something to worry about from Wal-Mart," says Brian McLaughlin, a state assemblyman and the president of the New York City Central Labor Council.

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the 100,000-member Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, says he was repulsed by the thought of a Wal-Mart in Queens. He worried about allegations--denied by Wal-Mart--that the company pays ultralow wages and has violated labor laws nationally.

"There was no question," says Mr. Appelbaum, "that we had to do something as soon as possible."


Bricks and mortar fire


Within days, the activists held news conferences at the proposed Rego Park construction site, owned by Vornado Realty Trust, as well as at City Hall. They next met with all 51 members of the City Council to press their cause; this step was especially critical because major commercial development in the city requires the blessing of the council's Land Use committee.

Organizers then raced to recruit as many different interest groups as possible to oppose the big-box retailer. The diverse coalition helped the campaign resonate with a greater variety of Queens residents.

Explains Mr. McLaughlin, "The labor board felt strongly that the Wal-Mart fight shouldn't have solely a labor face to it."

The organizers also sought out small-business leaders and activists working on behalf of immigrant shop owners, who feared that they could not compete with the retailing giant. They brought in residents who worried that a Wal-Mart would worsen the borough's notorious traffic problems. They called on environmentalists who were concerned about the impact of the development itself.


Taking it to the streets


This broad-based coalition offered the activists not only diversity, but also manpower for grassroots campaigning. Anti-Wal-Mart crusaders were dispatched to schools and churches to preach the negatives of the big-box chain.

Wal-Mart didn't just sit back and take its lumps, of course; it aggressively defended itself. Corporate Affairs Director Mia Masten says that a Wal-Mart would have brought 300 jobs to the borough, and disputes allegations that the chain offers low-paying jobs with few benefits. She adds that Wal-Marts in metropolitan areas pay associates an average hourly wage of $10.38 and that the company pays for two-thirds of employees' health benefits.

"We wouldn't have been able to grow the way that we have," Ms. Masten says, "if we weren't providing decent jobs, fair wages and good benefits."

Nevertheless, on Feb. 23, the anti-Wal-Mart campaign succeeded--at least for now. Vornado withdrew its application to house Wal-Mart in its shopping center. The real estate firm declines to comment on the matter.

None of the activists believes that Wal-Mart has given up its quest to open in Queens. Says Mr. McLaughlin, "This is just the beginning of a long campaign."

Wal-Mart's first-round defeat did not please everyone. According to Steve Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, many Queens shoppers who are looking for low prices and wide assortments head for big-box stores in Nassau County and New Jersey. A Wal-Mart in Queens, he says, would keep these consumers' dollars in the borough.

Mr. Malanga also argues that low-income residents suffer the most from the absence of big chains, adding that access to a Wal-Mart would allow them to save as much as 20% on many items.

"Prices in New York's poor neighborhoods," he says, "are unusually high on many basic goods."

[Ninjahedge]

March 7, 2005

New Math at Wal-Mart

To the Editor:

Re "Don't Blame Wal-Mart," by Robert B. Reich (Op-Ed, Feb. 28):

If Wal-Mart offered high-paying union jobs, as do the auto industry and the government, it would be seen as a savior in small towns and welcomed into big cities.

Would increasing wages cripple the company? If the wages of Wal-Mart's 1.2 million workers were increased to $25 an hour (from about $10), the company's costs would go up by about $36 billion.

Passing on that increase to consumers would add about 12 percent to the company's current annual revenues.

Therein lies the choice: jobs that pay about $50,000 a year for more than a million Americans, or a 12 percent discount on Gummy bears and barbecue grills.

William Seay
Nyack, N.Y., March 1, 2005
The writer, a psychologist, is a union representative for the New York State Public Employees' Federation.

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)


New math?

Where is this guy coming from?

Seriously, nobody said to raise the AVERAGE wage from $10 to $25 an hour.

They will still be 50% teen employees that are just working for their spending money. They will still have a minimum wage cleaning staff, etc etc.

And as big a boehemoth as they are, they could probably "negotiate" with the insurance companies to get a sweet deal in insurance benefits for its people.

So no, increasing the salaries of each and every Wal-mart employee by 2.5 times is NOT a valid suggestion 9as this union hater is trying to make it seem like the union is demanding).

But making it so that it does not destroy any smaller towns economic structure by routing out all competition and being the major source of undercompensated employment....


I think they have a right to protest it opening anywhere. NYC is just the only place that had enough control to be able to block them. Other places have tried, and failed.


(BTW, I am not demonizing Wal-Mart, I just hate it when people start calling Unions the absolute evil.

PEOPLE are the absolute evil, and the last time I checked, corporations had a few of them too.)

[ZippyTheChimp]

Errrr,

I think you misinterpreted the letter. He was using an extreme example to illustrate that increasing employee benefits would not severely impact the company's bottom-line.

His signature should have clued you. :)

As middle-income wages erode, a point is reached where there is no one left who can afford to buy the product. Henry Ford understood this very well. He cut production costs, but paid his workers much more than the industry average, and they became his customers.

Ever since the industrial revolution, the capitalist economy has depended on the disposable income of the middle class. Rich people have buying power, but there are too few of them to have the impact of the middle class.

[alex ballard]

Errrr,

I think you misinterpreted the letter. He was using an extreme example to illustrate that increasing employee benefits would not severely impact the company's bottom-line.

His signature should have clued you. :)

As middle-income wages erode, a point is reached where there is no one left who can afford to buy the product. Henry Ford understood this very well. He cut production costs, but paid his workers much more than the industry average, and they became his customers.

Ever since the industrial revolution, the capitalist economy has depended on the disposable income of the middle class. Rich people have buying power, but there are too few of them to have the impact of the middle class.

True, but here's where Wal-Mart is truly evil:

Wal-Mart rolls into Smalltown USA where it shuts down the competetion. Then, all those high-paying jobs go out the door. Then, the residents can ONLY shop at Wal-Mart becasue A) lessing tax base has caused the town to decline to the point where no buisness wants to relocate there B) people can't afford to shop anywhere else and C)Wal-Mart basically eats up so much of people's lives that without it, the town is left dead.

Wal-Mart can be best described as AIDS. Infect it. Eat it. Kill it. Done.

[billyblancoNYC]

What high-paying jobs does Wal-Mart wipe out in Smalltown, USA?

[Schadenfrau]

Union labor.

[alex ballard]

What high-paying jobs does Wal-Mart wipe out in Smalltown, USA?

high-paying is relative. If Joe's TV's pays $7 and Wal-Mart pays $5, then that's elimanting income. It may look small, but go a try subtracting 2/7's of your income and see how you fare. Then you'll know what I'm talking about.

[bohemian rhapsody]

A Wal-Mart in NYC is a horrible idea. No doubt that it will be successful (they always are, the buggers), especially given the location, but it's just sad. Nothing is sacred these days, I guess.

I really hope those Walton folks burn in hell for what they've done to our country. Not only do they ruin small local businesses, but Wal-Marts are the crappiest stores in the history of mankind. Too big, too crowded, messy, poor service, poor product and long waits.

[normaldude]

I really hope those Walton folks burn in hell for what they've done to our country. Not only do they ruin small local businesses,

New small businesses are created every day, taking on established giants with new business models and new technology. 50 years ago, Sam Walton started Wal-mart with a single general store in Arkansas, and grew past established giants like Macys, JC Penney and Sears. 20 years ago, a young Bill Gates took his Microsoft startup, and outmaneuvered established juggernauts like IBM. Today, we see young entrepreneurs creating the monsters of tomorrow in Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, Dell and Google. In NYC, you see small startups like FreshDirect.com taking on established supermarkets & grocers.

Wal-mart might put some local retailers out of business, and send them to the same dustbin where Woolworth, Bradlees and Caldor sit. But that doesn't mean we should clutch to the old business models of the past. Lightbulbs put many candle makers out of business, and automobiles put many horse & buggy companies out of business.

I often hear how Wal-mart is reducing choice & competition. But that ignores the changing face of business, where people can now buy even the most obscure, hard-to-find items over the internet, on ebay, on craigslist. And they have an increasing number of direct choices like Dell.com, Amazon.com, Autobytel.com, Expedia.com, Etrade.com, INGdirect.com, etc, that cut out traditional brick & mortar middlemen.

Even among brick & mortar retailers, Wal-mart isn't the blackhole of destruction that people like to portray it as. You'll see plenty of locations around the country where stores like Wal-mart, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, all sit next to each other, and all flourish. Retailers like Target and Kohls have higher growth rates and bigger profit margins than Wal-mart. There are malls where Wal-mart is an anchor tenant, and the other small mall stores continue to thrive. And Wal-mart will never hurt high end retailers like Prada or Tiffany. Even little dollar stores are growing faster than Wal-mart
( http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_19/b3882086.htm ).

There are always some winners & losers in capitalism. Economist Joseph Schumpeter called it "creative destruction". It might be sad to see Wal-mart put your favorite local retailer out of business. But as the economy progresses, you also see new small businesses selling their own products on the internet, in yahoo stores, on ebay. A local shopkeeper might be closing his store because of Wal-mart, but his son might be starting the next Amazon.com or Ebay.


but Wal-Marts are the crappiest stores in the history of mankind. Too big, too crowded, messy, poor service, poor product and long waits.

If so, then consumers seem to like their "crappy stores". A lot.

Overall, I wouldn't mind seeing a Wal-mart in NYC. Non-union big-box retailers - like Kmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, Best Buy, etc - have been pouring into NYC over the past 15 years. And in that time, the NYC economy has boomed, neighborhoods have gentrified, and crime has plummeted. And there are still niche stores in the Village and fashion retailers on Fifth Avenue.

Let the market decide which businesses succeed or fail in NYC. If you don't like Wal-mart, you don't have to work there or shop there. But New Yorkers should have the option of shopping at Wal-mart in NYC. Better than forcing NYC residents to give their business & tax revenue to NJ or Long Island if they want to shop at Wal-mart.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Not one word about employees.

[normaldude]

Not one word about employees.

I did mention that "If you don't like Wal-mart, you don't have to work there..". NYC is a huge market with thousands of employers, and millions of jobs. No one would ever be forced to work at a Wal-mart in NYC.

If/when Wal-mart breaks any laws regarding employees (not paying overtime, discrimination against women), they certainly should be fined for those specific actions.

As for low pay, Wal-mart pays about the same level as other big box retailers like Target and Kmart. And I doubt small retail stores in Queens pay any more than Wal-mart does.

And on the issue of health care, at least Wal-mart offers health insurance plans to their employees.. while a lot of small local businesses do not.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I did mention that "If you don't like Wal-mart, you don't have to work there..". NYC is a huge market with thousands of employers, and millions of jobs.
Walmart is the nation's largest employer. They are in a position to set precedent. Other companies are forced to follow suit to stay competitive. The issue is far beyond getting a job in NYC.


And on the issue of health care, at least Wal-mart offers health insurance plans to their employees.
The offer is offer to sell. Many employees can't afford what can be over $250 per month for coverage on $1600 gross monthly wage.

http://www.ctj.org/gjf/gjfhealthcaredisclosure.htm

In my opinion, this company is just sleazy, and the image it tries to promote with its cutsy bouncing smiley is laughable.

[Ninjahedge]

Errrr,

I think you misinterpreted the letter. He was using an extreme example to illustrate that increasing employee benefits would not severely impact the company's bottom-line.

His signature should have clued you. :)

As middle-income wages erode, a point is reached where there is no one left who can afford to buy the product. Henry Ford understood this very well. He cut production costs, but paid his workers much more than the industry average, and they became his customers.

Ever since the industrial revolution, the capitalist economy has depended on the disposable income of the middle class. Rich people have buying power, but there are too few of them to have the impact of the middle class.

I did not have the patience to read the Gummi-Bear thing. ;)

But the thing is, people are willing to get a 5% discount (hell, a 3% discount in SALES TAX) on a lot of things just to save that extra dollar. 12% on gummi bears, or 12% for them, on $5200 a year comes out to a brand new TV.

So whatever.....

[Ninjahedge]

The other thing is, you start to make comparisons with Wal-Mart to M$ and teh like.

But the things is, M$ started off by gates pretty much d!cking over his "buddies" (he was not the popular one, even among the geeks) and marketing what they all had developed which was, pretty much, a copy of the Apple OS.

Burt now in his effort for fair competition in the software market, he BUYS UP ALL COMPETITION HE SEES AS A THREAT.

Wal-Mart is similar in that they are looking for ways to steifle competition. Not just to try to make their sales better, but make their sales the only ones available.


They may not be the dominators of things such as the luxury market, but they are making it hard for anyone to have a startup company ion anything remotely resembling their product line.

Also, the fact that they do not want to work WITh the unions, but pretty much say "our way or else" means that they do not care at ALL about their workers beyond what they can pay them to keep them from running away screaming.


And the commercials sicken me. the more smiley happy employees a commercial shows, the more likely that the ones you will find when you go there are far from it. (I have never seen a commercial-type employee ar the Forest-Hills Home Depot. Hell, I find it hard to find ANY!!!!)

But, whatever. I do not want to make it illegal for them to persue this, they are allowed, but it does not mean I will not speak out against them, not shop AT them, and support competition. Unfortunately, 3/4 of the people out there are money grubbers that would rather say "scr3w them" and get their gummy bears for 12% less than at DR... ;)

[Schadenfrau]

No one would ever be forced to work at a Wal-mart in NYC.

Yet you state that New Yorkers are FORCED to go to New Jersey and Long Island to shop. How's that logic again?

[Ninjahedge]

Yet you state that New Yorkers are FORCED to go to New Jersey and Long Island to shop. How's that logic again?


STOP THAT!!!!


You cant blindly associate selective logic like that!!!!!!!!!

[MikeW]

I didn't make the original post, but I'll respond. "Forced" might be the wrong word. "Enticed" might be a better term. Enticed by the fact that stores outside the city (and even the big boxes in the city) have much better selection and much lower prices than the little local ripoff places in the city.




Yet you state that New Yorkers are FORCED to go to New Jersey and Long Island to shop. How's that logic again?

[normaldude]

Yet you state that New Yorkers are FORCED to go to New Jersey and Long Island to shop. How's that logic again?

Because you misquoted me. I had said "..Better than forcing NYC residents to give their business & tax revenue to NJ or Long Island if they want to shop at Wal-mart."

[Schadenfrau]

Shopping at Wal-Mart is a choice, just as working at Wal-Mart is a choice. The difference is that someone who makes the choice to shop at Wal-Mart is generally in a better position than someone who makes the "choice" to work there.

Buying $1.99 dish soap from Wal-Mart as opposed to $2.09 dish soap from the bodega is a choice. Especially when you consider the amount of money you're likely paying to drive instead of walking.

Making minimum wage and not being able to afford child/health care because the only job you can find is at Wal-Mart is less of a choice than it is a necessity.

If you're really that keen on "every day low prices", go for it. But maybe, just maybe, you should consider the ramifications that has on the world beyond your own nose.

[bohemian rhapsody]

New small businesses are created every day, taking on established giants with new business models and new technology. 50 years ago, Sam Walton started Wal-mart with a single general store in Arkansas, and grew past established giants like Macys, JC Penney and Sears. 20 years ago, a young Bill Gates took his Microsoft startup, and outmaneuvered established juggernauts like IBM. Today, we see young entrepreneurs creating the monsters of tomorrow in Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, Dell and Google. In NYC, you see small startups like FreshDirect.com taking on established supermarkets & grocers.

Wal-mart might put some local retailers out of business, and send them to the same dustbin where Woolworth, Bradlees and Caldor sit. But that doesn't mean we should clutch to the old business models of the past. Lightbulbs put many candle makers out of business, and automobiles put many horse & buggy companies out of business.

I often hear how Wal-mart is reducing choice & competition. But that ignores the changing face of business, where people can now buy even the most obscure, hard-to-find items over the internet, on ebay, on craigslist. And they have an increasing number of direct choices like Dell.com, Amazon.com, Autobytel.com, Expedia.com, Etrade.com, INGdirect.com, etc, that cut out traditional brick & mortar middlemen.

Even among brick & mortar retailers, Wal-mart isn't the blackhole of destruction that people like to portray it as. You'll see plenty of locations around the country where stores like Wal-mart, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, all sit next to each other, and all flourish. Retailers like Target and Kohls have higher growth rates and bigger profit margins than Wal-mart. There are malls where Wal-mart is an anchor tenant, and the other small mall stores continue to thrive. And Wal-mart will never hurt high end retailers like Prada or Tiffany. Even little dollar stores are growing faster than Wal-mart
( http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_19/b3882086.htm ).

There are always some winners & losers in capitalism. Economist Joseph Schumpeter called it "creative destruction". It might be sad to see Wal-mart put your favorite local retailer out of business. But as the economy progresses, you also see new small businesses selling their own products on the internet, in yahoo stores, on ebay. A local shopkeeper might be closing his store because of Wal-mart, but his son might be starting the next Amazon.com or Ebay.



If so, then consumers seem to like their "crappy stores". A lot.

Overall, I wouldn't mind seeing a Wal-mart in NYC. Non-union big-box retailers - like Kmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, Best Buy, etc - have been pouring into NYC over the past 15 years. And in that time, the NYC economy has boomed, neighborhoods have gentrified, and crime has plummeted. And there are still niche stores in the Village and fashion retailers on Fifth Avenue.

Let the market decide which businesses succeed or fail in NYC. If you don't like Wal-mart, you don't have to work there or shop there. But New Yorkers should have the option of shopping at Wal-mart in NYC. Better than forcing NYC residents to give their business & tax revenue to NJ or Long Island if they want to shop at Wal-mart.

I was exaggerating with the "burn in hell" bit. I understand that Wal-Mart was once a small business. They did well and they grew - a LOT.

I just don't plain like the stores, on so many levels. I don't feel like getting into a huge long explanation of my reasons since there are so many posts already that sum it up perfectly.

As for them being crappy stores, well they ARE. Compare them to similar discount stores and I guarantee you that they will rank among the worst in quality of product, of service, store design (or lack thereof) and treatment and pay for employees. The only thing they have going for them is the low pricing and the idea that you can get everything you need in one store. But in NYC, convenience is a way of life. Why does anyone need a big store with food, drugstore items, a pharmacy, clothing, a hair salon, eyeglass store, nail salon, etc, when all of those things can be found within a few blocks of each other (if not ON the same block) in the city already??? And these small businesses that are already so conveniently dispersed throughout the city have different things to offer as well as better products and service.

Wal-Mart just does not make sense for NYC. End of story.

[normaldude]

But, whatever. I do not want to make it illegal for them to persue this, they are allowed, but it does not mean I will not speak out against them, not shop AT them, and support competition.

I think that's the right attitude. I personally prefer to shop at Target over Wal-mart.

[normaldude]

I just don't plain like the stores, on so many levels.

I understand that feeling completely. I personally hate AOL and Bally Total Fitness for their sleazy business practices. And I discourage anyone from giving their money to those firms.

But I would never want the government to block those firms from entering a market, or block individual consumers from making that final choice for themselves.

[billyblancoNYC]

Whether you like Wal Mart or not, it doesn't make sense to try to completely shut them out, or other chains. I don't like ti myself, but thousands of people do. Home Depot, Target, BJs, etc. all open stores here and do MASSIVE amounts of business, typically in the top of the country. At this same time, local stores, etc. in all 5 boroughs seem to be doign very well, with much variety and little retail vacancies. In NYC, these are anchors, not killers. Plus, people in Queens go to LI for a place like Wal Mart. People in SI and maybe Brooklyn (even Manhattan) can go nearby in Jersey. It makes more sense to have the jobs and tax revenues in the city. I'm not saying open all the doors, but 1 or 2 Wal Marts in the city will not kill anyone.

[billyblancoNYC]

Wal-Mart Looks At Proposed Sites On Staten Island
MARCH 03RD, 2005

http://www.ny1.com/ny/Boroughs/SubTopic/index.html?topicintid=3&subtopicintid=11&contentintid=48703


Plans to build a Wal-Mart in Queens crumbled last week, but the world's biggest retailer is still looking to break into New York City via Staten Island. NY1’s Amanda Farinacci has the details in the following report.

Along with the rest of the strip-malls and chain stores on Staten Island, residents may soon get one more; Wal-Mart.

With a location in Queens now out of the picture, the discount giant quickly shifted gears, and is now in talks to build two stores on the island.

”It’s good. It will be big business, it will help business,” says Michael Lehman, who works near the site of the potential store. “People need it.”

“I think the Wal-Mart is a good idea. I think it's good for the island, and more people would stay on the island instead of going to [New] Jersey,” says another area resident, Enid Motelson.

The first proposed site is a mostly vacant and unused 18-acre industrial site near the Outer Bridge. The second site is a 27-acre site near South and Forest avenues slated to house a Wal-Mart and a car dealership, if the deal goes through.

Both locations are zoned for manufacturing use and would require zoning changes or special permits before the big-box retailer could open there.

“I’m not sure it's a good situation for the area because of the additional traffic and congestion it will bring up,” says Staten Island resident Joe Spallina. “It may be good for developing the site that has been empty for awhile; I'm just not sure what the impact will be.”

Last week, City Council members and organized labor expressed concerns about Wal-Mart's employment policies when discussing plans to build in Rego Park, Queens. Some Staten Islanders echoed those concerns, claiming Wal-Mart does not do right by its workers.

“They export a lot of work, they are big on outsourcing, and they treat their employees terribly,” says Staten Islander Mark Mohr. “What they do in terms of benefits for their employees is they help them get welfare, and they're terrible for the economy as far as I’m concerned.”

“As far as I know there was things about their pay, money and whatever, that's up to the individual if they want to accept it or not,” says Motelson. “I don’t think that has any relevance to whether it should be here or not. I think it would be good for the island.”

- Amanda Farinacci

[ZippyTheChimp]

Wal-Mart Sees City as 'Ripe' Market

BY DANIELA GERSON
May 23, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/14220

Wal-Mart's director of corporate affairs for New York City, Mia Masten, is a native of Arkansas who worked in President Clinton's administration. She spoke with The New York Sun's Daniela Gerson last week about the world's largest retailer's plans to open for business in the Big Apple.

Q. Wal-Mart announced plans for its first New York store last December in Rego Park. Within months, reports surfaced that the developer had pulled out of the deal. What happened?

A. We never had a deal. It never should have come out that way, because there were negotiations going on with developers with us, and it just didn't come through. ... The way it all came out was one of our real estate managers was at a conference and shared some of our ideas about moving into metro markets. ... It is one of the areas we are interested in because we know customers are already shopping in our nearby stores. In Valley Stream, which is near Queens, about 60% of our customers are coming from Queens, and so we know that area is ripe for a retail store.

Did your decision to pull out of the deal have anything to do with the "Stop Wal-Mart" alliance of organized labor, elected officials, and small businesses?

No, we never even had a chance to go through the process. ... We never had a deal, never even got to that point. We're still very interested in the New York market. From looking at our stores and also from looking at other retailers – K-Mart, Target, Home Depot - we know that this market is ripe for customers, and we also know that from our stores alone, $98 million worth of consumer dollars came from New York City shoppers just last year to our nearby stores. So we know the customer base is here.

Where are you looking to build stores in New York?

We're looking at all five boroughs at this time. Manhattan will probably be the last one, just because there are so few sites that would be amenable to our format. We don't have any deals signed, and so I know there is a lot of speculation about various sites. Whenever there is a large space, we're asked, "Are you looking, are you looking, are you looking?" We're looking everywhere, but until we have a deal signed we're just not going to comment on any specific site.

Just before the Rego Park deal collapsed, a City Council hearing had an empty seat and a cardboard figure with Wal-Mart written on it. Before the meeting there were protests. At the hearing, I did not hear any positive voices from the Council about Wal-Mart. Have you been surprised by this type of backlash?

You know what's interesting about that hearing? Number one, we didn't have any stores here; we didn't have a deal; we were notified at the last minute. I did provide testimony. The councilman's staff said they appreciated us providing testimony and they had reached out to others who did not respond. That was unfortunate. ... Why is it that other retailers in town have a similar format and product size and similar labor practices who are in town had no protests?

We should have the opportunity to discuss any proposed project as anyone else would, and then the consumer should decide where they shop. When is the line crossed that it becomes a tenanting issue, rather than a project specific issue?

The bashing of Wal-Mart is becoming a cottage industry right now. Everybody is jumping on the bandwagon. We open over 300 stores a year. We have over 100 million customers coming into our stores. We know that Wal-Mart is successful. People do want the stores.

How do you know that New Yorkers want Wal-Mart? Have you conducted any polls?

We found that 62% of New Yorkers do want Wal-Mart; more than 50% go outside to the suburbs to do their shopping. ... People like the fact that the stores provide jobs, they like the convenience. Why go out to Long Island or to New Jersey when you can have it here? Keep the tax revenues here, keep the disposable income here.

One of the most vocal criticisms that the "Stop Wal-Mart" campaign is presenting is that in other communities the store actually cost communities money because low pay and benefits will force employees to go on public assistance.

A lot of information is not true. ... Yes, some people in retail do need that additional help. Yes, some of our associates do. But we're no different than other retailers in the number or percentage of associates that do need public assistance.... We do offer health care benefits. Keep in mind, this is retail. We have a lot of people who are either first job opportunities, they have their parents' health insurance, or they're second-income providers. A majority of our associates are actually second-income providers. ... It also begs the question if you're employed, with the option of health care benefits, your chances of being on Medicaid are less than if you're unemployed.

What would be the starting salary for a Wal-Mart employee in New York?

We will do a salary survey when we come into the area to make sure our salary is going to be competitive with other retailers. However, in the metro markets the average salary is about $10.30 an hour.

Hillary Clinton once sat on the board of Wal-Mart. Has she reached out to you at all?

No.

Have you reached out to her?

No, we haven't.

You placed an ad recently in the New York Review of Books. Why there, and what's the general advertising strategy in New York?

For far too long, others have had the lead in telling something about Wal-Mart, rather than us telling our story. And so we started a "Just the Facts" campaign, in ads across the country, and we launched a Web site. We're telling our story.... There was an editorial written in the Review of Books that was really just chock-full of misinformation. It was one of the things where that was a way for us to fight back in the same publication, and we will be fighting back more aggressively, or I should say getting our message out. You'll see more New York centric "Just the Facts."

No Wal-Mart store in America has a union. Would you allow one to form at a New York City Wal-Mart?

If they want to, they have the option to do that. ... But at this point our associates don't want a union. We don't think unions are necessary. Our associates have said that time and time again, that they appreciate the open-door policy that we have, whereby if an associate has a complaint, a concern, or a recommendation, they can go directly to their manager, their district manager, all the way up to the CEO. They don't think third-party representation is necessary.

Why are you coming to New York now?

If you look at the growth of the company, it started out in Arkansas in rural environments where at that time there weren't any shopping options. Forty years ago people were already in the cities, retail was already there. Then people were moving out to the suburbs. That's where the customers were. Now things are shifting. Some people are moving back into the cities. Some of the other retailers have already come back into the cities. We want to be a part of that as well.

When do you see the first Wal-Mart being built in New York?

It takes at least a year to build a store. Probably 2007.

[kmistic]

Wal-Mart Sees City as 'Ripe' Market

BY DANIELA GERSON
May 23, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/14220


How do you know that New Yorkers want Wal-Mart? Have you conducted any polls?

We found that 62% of New Yorkers do want Wal-Mart; more than 50% go outside to the suburbs to do their shopping. ... People like the fact that the stores provide jobs, they like the convenience. Why go out to Long Island or to New Jersey when you can have it here? Keep the tax revenues here, keep the disposable income here.



I find it hard to believe that over half of New York leaves the city to go shopping. It was my understanding that over 50% of New Yorkers don't even own a vehicle. How do they get there?

[alex ballard]

I always thought that Wal-Mart was the symbol for the "anti-city" crowd. Apparently, they look at NYC with very juicy eyes.


With this, the NASCAR speedway, the increasing corporate and family ties to Texas, Atlanta, and Florida (NYers going there, Southerners coming here), and the general turn towards politeness and clam in the last 20 years, maybe Dixie is taking over NY...

[Schadenfrau]

I wouldn't equate any fans of NASCAR with politeness and calm.

There is no way that over 50% of New Yorkers shop in the suburbs on a regular basis. The question was probably something along the lines of, "Have you left NYC in the past five years? If so, did you purchase anything at all?"