There will have to be a miracle today, if Chicago is to make history and take a step towards civilization. That miracle will be: aldermen show up.
There is a peculiar bug that goes around Chicago political circles when there is an important vote up before the Council. Not only that, but flights seem to be missed more often than is the average; dentists appointments run long.
Ald. Joe Moore has estimated he has 30 votes in favor of the Big Box Living Wage Ordinance; it needs 26 to pass. However, given Mayor Daley's recent furious opposition to the bill, there can be little doubt that a number of those 30 will fall away — but not want to lose face.
I hope those 30 votes materialize. Seeing so many of these supposedly tough aldermen wilt like hothouse flowers these last few years, I cannot say I believe it is likely.
Wal-Mart has dug in. They have promised, in a rather gaudy public fashion, that aldermen can count on the Arkansas-based retailers' sponsorship in the February municipal elections if they vote nay on the Big Box Living Wage ordinance that would mandate a living wage be paid by gigantic retailers with revenue over $1 billion.
Across the aisle, unions and community groups have clumsily threatened to dedicate cash and "troops" to the opponents of anybody who votes against the measure, and to reward those who vote for it, creating the perfect opening for Wal-Mart, retailers associations, and contractors to offer garbage trucks full of cash to fight off any Johnny-Come-Lately challenge.
Labor and community activists held a candlelight vigil last night outside of City Hall, a balmy midsummer Chicago night dripping humid, made to feel somewhat hollow by the gravelly voiced standards being sent into the sky:
"We're fired up, we won't take it no more!"
"What's outrageous? Wal-Mart wages!"
Some slept near City Hall in a church, ready to join battle with opponents of the ordinance in the early morning hours.
Among them, South Side pastor and maverick state Senator Rev. James Meeks of the massive Trinity Congregation. Meeks, along with an insta-coalition calling itself the "Ministerial Coalition for Jobs," have used ugly rhetoric and faulty logic in opposing the ordinance, saying it is tantamount to refusing jobs to blacks in low-income communities.
Mayor Daley, red-faced and blustering, came just short of calling the bill racist, likening it to the redlining practices that kept (and, well, keep) blacks out of predominately white neighborhoods.
And labor, clumsy as labor will be, has not done a great job of explaining just what exactly is going on here — that Chicago, like so many cities and towns before it, is being extorted.
Part of labor's clumsiness on this issue comes from its historically poor record in the black community. When most people think of "unions" in Chicago, they likely don't think of the progressive unions representing bus drivers or hotel workers making $7 an hour or the home healthcare workers making $8.50. They think of the plumbers, joint fitters, and other trades that have locked out minorities since time immemorial; a pale and stale craft unionism that, working with the business community, locked out minority contractors, too.
And among the leaders of Chicago's unions, whether the trades or service sector, there are noticeably few — which is to say, almost no — black faces.
But these are all divisive "sins of the father" type arguments — and all part of the public relations maelstrom that has made a rather simple issue into a confusing one — because although labor is undoubtedly a major stakeholder in the fight to pass this civilizing legislation, this isn't about unions. There is nothing in the living wage ordinance that will inherently help unions. This is about affirming our humanity by not forcibly compromising somebody else's worth.
The union in question here is the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents among others Jewel and Dominick stores. Wal-Mart and Target spinmeisters have been sketching this picture — with short, quick, deft strokes on mixed media — of unions jealously protecting their market share via this piece of legislation. The reality is, Wal-Mart and Target could pay their workers $25 an hour and still crush Jewel and Dominick's if they so wish. The mere fact of their size and ability to sustain losses in the short term makes that intrinsically the case. The $13 in wages and benefits mandated by the ordinance would do nothing to "protect" unionized grocers; in any case, Wal-Mart is not building a grocery in Chicago, at least not yet.
This is about worth. This is about understanding, perhaps finally understanding, that community is of everybody, and strong communities benefit everybody. And that a strong community is one where we don't mark one as worth less (or worse, worthless) as a way to bargain for a few table scraps. We don't, in a civilized society, simply shrug at our humanity in hopes for better treatment.
The "pro-jobs" coalitions, which parade under the slogan "Don't Box Me Out," have used sly innuendo of union racism and white liberal parochialism to insinuate that there is no support for living wage legislation in the black community; this is patently not the case. In 2004, a pair of thugs broke up a hearing on Wal-Mart's intended South Side store shouting "Fuck the racist unions!" But having worked personally on this issue in the past I can relate anecdotally that when the actual legislation is explained to people — i.e., when it isn't being described as an ordinance to keep Wal-Mart out — eight or nine out of ten people support it. This is backed up by a poll conducted by Lake Partners earlier this year that showed that 84 percent of Chicagoans supported the measure.
So bitter (or, conceivably, bought) have these "pro-jobs" supporters become that they completely fail to pause; that pause would helpful. That pause might help them see that there is not a 1-to-1 correlation between this ordinance passing and Wal-Mart not creating jobs. Wal-Mart would almost arbitrarily be making the decision not to open stores in Chicago if the ordinance passes; there is nothing forcing them to do so. If it is the case that Wal-Mart already pays well over the living wage detailed in the ordinance, as they allege, then what exactly is the "competitive disadvantage" that their spokesperson, one John Bisio, has been whining about for the last two years? It doesn't exist.
This is that same old refrain that, though sung across five generations by a thousand different tongues in a thousand different keys with a thousand variations of timbre, somehow ends up sounding exactly the same: Kneel before us, and maybe we'll let you work for us.
The same refrain sung when we fought to outlaw child labor.
The same refrain sung when women choked to death in weaving rooms, and we insisted on workplace safety.
The same refrain sung when we fought for a bare minimum wage.
The same refrain sung when we fought for a progressive income tax.
It has never proved out. Finally, I hoped, business had sunk that shaft one too many times, and nobody would fall for it — nobody would sniff twice the fool's gold they produced.
But many did. They not only fell for it — if we take the opposition of this ordinance as something less than sinister, the kindest thing we can say is that they were duped — they marched for it; Mayor Daley, an otherwise intelligent man, made a fool of himself blustering for that fool's gold, the promise of a low-paying, insecure job.
When I say this ordinance will bring Chicago a step close to civilization, that is to say it will move us from the dishonorable position of groveling on our knees and deleting our humanity, to standing fully erect in proud awareness of our worth as human beings.
To grovel on our knees for crumbs when dining at the table is our full right, and easily done to boot, is a shame beyond embarrassment but seeping in fact into devolution. It is not civilized to treat oneself, and one's brothers and sisters, as chattel.
To stand erect and demand a seat at the table is to be cognizant of one's own humanity, to possess that self-awareness that makes man Man.
That is the two-fold choice: on your knees or on your feet.
Chicago, what position do you assume?
Peter / July 26, 2006 9:27 AM
Two things:
1.) If this ordinance passes, it will get thrown out later in court, making this puppet show do nothing but bill taxpayers for huge legal costs down the road.
2.) Is it a prerequisite for a GB Chicago politics writer to be so blatantly biased towards organized labor?