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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 3, 2011)
June 3, 2011_nWLP 5/31/11 10:21 aM Page 2 Union workers under grave threat from Walmart expansion A thousand UFCW members could lose jobs if Walmart opens 17 Portland-area stores as planned By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor The story appeared May 3: Walmart is looking to add 17 stores to the four it now has in the Portland area. Local union officials say that would be a serious threat to workers at union- ized grocers like Fred Meyer, Safeway and Albertsons. Walmart is legendary for its opposition to unions: Though it’s the largest private employer in the United States, not a single U.S. worker is union-represented. And Walmart has 1.4 million U.S. employees — twice as many as Kroger, Safeway, and Super- valu combined. (Kroger owns Fred Meyer and other regional chains, while Supervalu owns Albertsons and others.) According to an article in the Ore- gonian, Walmart hopes to add eight stores in Portland and nine in Clacka- mas, Washington and Multnomah coun- ties. Of the Portland stores, four would be “neighborhood markets” (the com- pany’s term for smaller stores the size of a traditional supermarket), and four would be supercenters (which include grocery) or discount stores like its sole existing Portland store at Eastport Plaza. Outside Portland, Walmart would open four neighborhood markets and five dis- count stores and supercenters. All told, the new stores would employ 4,300 full- and part-time workers, according to a re- port prepared for the company by the Vancouver economic analysis firm E.D. Hovee & Co. Walmart currently has 31 stores in Oregon — 17 supercenters and 14 discount stores — according to its 2011 annual report. The Portland roll-out is part of a na- tionwide push by Walmart to build in cities that have long resisted the com- pany. “Walmart really saturated rural and suburban America,” explains Jennifer Stapleton, national spokesperson for Making Change at Walmart, a cam- paign of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. “There’s nowhere else Walmart can grow in those communities without cannibaliz- ing their own stores. So the top 50 mar- kets in the United States — places like Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, D.C., and New York are the only places left for Walmart to grow.” Large coalitions have come together in Washington, D.C. and New York to oppose the Walmart expansion, Staple- ton said. Local unions will need to mount a similar response in Portland. “This is the fight we’ve been waiting for,” said Jeff Anderson, secretary-treas- urer of Tigard-headquartered UFCW Local 555. “We’re going to use every tool in the tool box to fight these stores.” Local 555 represents grocery work- ers throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington, and has fought Walmart before. When it loses those fights, its members lose their livelihoods. Two Al- bertsons stores closed in Salem, and one in North Bend, after Walmart stores opened nearby, Anderson said. “Retail is a zero sum game,” Ander- son said. “You can only drink so much milk. More stores means you’re taking an existing pie and shrinking it.” Anderson said a conservative guess is that as many as 1,000 UFCW mem- bers could lose income and their health benefits if the proposed Portland-area Walmart expansion succeeds. To oppose Walmart’s expansion, Lo- cal 555 came up with several options at a May 23 strategy session: an ordinance banning construction of new big box stores; a living wage ordinance; land- use appeals; and community pressure. Local 555 backed a big box ban to stop a Walmart store in Keizer earlier this year, but the local ballot initiative — barring retail buildings larger than 65,000 square feet except in the Keizer Station development — failed by 34 votes in a March 8, 2011 special elec- tion. If a big box ban passed in the Port- land area, existing stores including about 10 unionized Fred Meyer loca- tions would be “grandfathered.” But such a ban wouldn’t do anything to counter Walmart’s plans for “small box” neighborhood markets. A living wage ordinance, setting a minimum wage and benefit levels for certain kinds of businesses, might be trickier, but it’s been tried in other places, like Chicago, Anderson said. Both strategies rely on politics, which is an attractive route because it allows Walmart critics to make the case to elected officials (or to local voters through an initiative) that the company is a bad citizen — paying everyday low wages (and thereby reducing the tax base); relying on taxpayers to pick up health care costs for its low-income part-time workforce; skirting wage and hour and gender discrimination laws as alleged in two ongoing multi-state class action lawsuits; selling overwhelmingly foreign-made goods; and causing small business closures and the loss of higher- paying jobs at competing companies. The third strategy — using the land use appeals process — is indirect, but has often succeeded in halting plans for Walmart stores. Any major develop- ment, particularly big-box retail, must get approval of city planners, and citi- zens normally have avenues to weigh in on such things as traffic impacts, safety, aesthetics, and parking. But all these campaigns would hinge on community sentiment. And Walmart is a veteran campaigner in these so-called “site fights.” In Port- land, the company is already cam- paigning. Ads are airing on conserva- tive talk radio shows, directing listeners to a web site to find out about the com- pany’s good deeds — and to sign up to get updates from the “Walmart Oregon Community Action Network.” “We are going to develop a very ro- bust response to Walmart’s entry into the Portland market share,” Anderson declared. “We’re going to be fighting them on the streets.” (International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X) Established in 1900 at Portland, Oregon as a voice of the labor movement. 4275 NE Halsey St., P.O. Box 13150, Portland, Ore. 97213 Telephone: (503) 288-3311 Editor: Michael Gutwig Staff: Don McIntosh, Cheri Rice Published on a semi-monthly basis on the first and third Fridays of each month by the Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc., a non- profit corporation owned by 20 unions and councils including the Oregon AFL-CIO. Serving more than 120 union organizations in Ore- gon and SW Washington. Subscriptions $13.75 per year for union members. Group rates available to trade union organizations. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT PORTLAND, OREGON. CHANGE OF ADDRESS NOTICE: Three weeks are required for a change of address. When ordering a change, please give your old and new addresses and the name and number of your local union. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS, P.O. BOX 13150, PORTLAND, OR 97213-0150 PAGE 2 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS JUNE 3, 2011
