Wal-Mart is not just another company. It is the largest corporation in the world and everything it does sends shudders through the economy, affecting market behavior and the practices of its competitors.
A year ago, I told you about Wal-Mart’s censorship. I told you about the company’s forcing its employees to work unpaid overtime. My column mentioned Wal-Mart’s low wages and alleged use of pressure tactics to prevent the formation of labor unions. I told you about the accusations of sex discrimination and I urged you to shop at more socially responsible businesses.
In the year since, the bad news about Wal-Mart has continued to rain down. Details have emerged of Wal-Mart workers routinely laboring through their breaks in violation of state labor laws.
An internal audit found numerous violations of child labor laws that limit how many hours minors can work and when, The New York Times reported. Wal-Mart responded to these findings not by striving to improve its labor record but by eliminating the time-clock records that provided the only paper trail of its violations.
Wal-Mart also came under fire in October for employing illegal immigrants. Federal agents raided 60 Wal-Marts on Oct. 23 and arrested more than 250 janitors whom the government believed were in the country illegally.
Just two weeks ago, Wal-Mart settled an environmental case brought by federal agencies for $3.1 million. The company paid the record amount for violations of the Clean Water Act caused by excessive stormwater runoff.
When grocery store workers went on strike in California this past year, the grocery chains used the looming threat of competition from non-union Wal-Mart stores to push for labor concessions.
Now, Wal-Mart wants a bigger piece of Eugene. The company has applied to expand its store on West 11th Avenue to 217,000 square feet.
At a Eugene City Council work session Monday, several councilors expressed reservations about the prospect of the city
playing host to a larger Wal-Mart.
“The current application … will have negative consequences on the transportation infrastructure and the wetlands,” Councilor Betty Taylor said. Taylor displayed strong opposition to Wal-Mart’s plans at the meeting, going so far as to propose a moratorium on applications for retail space exceeding 50,000 square feet.
Councilor David Kelly, whose district includes the neighborhoods around the University, said Wal-Mart’s plans struck him as an economic development issue. Kelly said the kind of “low-wage and low-benefit jobs” that Wal-Mart offers may end up costing taxpayers money by creating a gap between those workers’ wages and real-life costs that government ends up paying for through welfare and government-subsidized medical aid.
Councilors Bonny Bettman and Scott Meisner — after a switched vote by Meisner — joined Kelly and Taylor in supporting a motion for a moratorium. The effort was shot down, however, by opposition from Mayor Jim Torrey and a bloc of conservative councilors.
One of those councilors, Jennifer Solomon, cited Wal-Mart’s low prices as her reason for supporting the expansion. Admittedly, Wal-Mart offers the cheapest prices. But at what point do social concerns outweigh saving a buck?
Wal-Mart poses a classic example of the excesses of capitalism. Though capitalism is by far the best economic system tried yet, it has flaws.
Sensible regulation can partially correct those imperfections. Regulating Wal-Mart extends the industrial regulation in place since the late 19th and early 20th centuries in response to child labor, unsafe work environments and tainted food, water and drugs.
Any city council effort to oppose Wal-Mart faces the difficult task of preventing undesirable developments while allowing desirable ones. The council can’t legislate against Wal-Mart by name because of legal obstacles, so it’s left with crafting a difficult definition of what constitutes a “big box” supercenter.
One proposal, a blanket prohibition on any retail development or expansion of more than 50,000 square feet, could ensnare plans for a new Home Depot on West 11th Avenue and expansion of other stores in Eugene, said Tom Coyle, executive director of the city’s planning and development department. While the proposal may have its merits, it would clearly affect more than just Wal-Mart.
Some councilors said it’s too late to turn Eugene into an anti-big box oasis. As Kelly noted, however, “The horse may be out of the barn but preventing more of it happening is valuable as well.”
It may be too late to stop the Wal-Mart expansion under consideration, but by passing an ordinance, the council can limit Wal-Mart or its competitors from building more supercenters.
Perhaps a 100,000-square-foot ceiling would prove more workable. As an editorial in The Sunday Register-Guard noted, this would have the effect of giving Wal-Mart a local superstore monopoly.
Yet a superstore isn’t a true monopoly because it doesn’t offer products or services unavailable elsewhere. A Eugene resident could get a haircut at Wal-Mart or at myriad of local businesses.
Any effort to stop Wal-Mart from growing in Eugene constitutes a noble action. Let’s hope our city councilors are crafty enough to figure out a workable solution that a majority of councilors can tolerate.