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Walmart Issue

 
Scroll Down to View Following Posts—
 
• Communities Fightback Against Walmart Invasions
 
• Setbacks Reveal Dangerous Developer Intentions
 
• Using Fiction — Miracles Stop a Corporation
 
• Nebraska Options to a Mega-Store
 
• Development Advisory Committees Become a Weapon
 
• NYC Zoning Variance Procedures
 
• Youth Hidden From Superstore Effects
 
Techniques to Learn About the Opposition

Communities Fightback Against Walmart Invasions

 

 

Workers in China are fighting for labor rights against Walmart's business invasion. One woman won a wrongful termination legal action, according to The American Prospect, a liberal politics and policy magazine.

 

The past year witnessed a distribution-center striking to protest cuts in benefits, and disputes of cases dealing with retaliation against activists.

 

The Chinese struggle can become a message to local neighborhood groups about gathering support.

 

Labor NGOs that previously failed to support factory workers or organizations like the Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), a Hong Kong-based NGO that advocates for expanded workers’ rights, now stand with the Walmart workers.

 

Protests in the United States have grown since Black Friday a couple of years ago when Walmart workers from San Leandro, California, Seattle and Dallas left their workplace. 

 

“We’re not trying to shut down business,” said Yesenia Yaber, a two-year Walmart Associate in Chicago, Ill. “We are supporting our co-workers who speak out for better working conditions."

 

Developers might want to know how working conditions could improve from a company known to focus only on making corporate profits.

 

Walmart’s lack of concern for better working conditions can be seen from the fires hitting Bangladesh factories, one of which claimed 112 workers lives. Walmart defeated a suggestion from other retail corporations that sought to pay for safety improvements in factories, according to Ineke Zeldenrust of the Amsterdam-based NGO Clean Clothes Campaign.

 

On the other hand, funds appear not to be a problem for Walmart. The corporation purchases around $1 billion worth of textiles from Bangladesh a year, according to Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times. While Walmart likes the Bangladesh’s $37-a-month minimum wage, the corporation pays factory owners bare minimums that prevent the factories from investing in safety.

 

With such a track record, Walmart probably has community developers running to legal consultants to find what those events mean for the average neighborhood. Fears might be warranted. Within 18 months of a Chicago Walmart opening, as many as 82 from 306 small businesses faced bankruptcy, according to several sources.

 

Downtowns around the country look like scenes from another planet. For example, Walmart’s Selig Enterprises has been pushing a plan in Decatur, Georgia for the Suburban Plaza complex. Selig plans to raise rents in the non-Walmart half of the shopping center and aggressively seeks national chain stores for that section. How long would a small hardware, green grocer, or tailor last?

 

How large is Walmart? The giant stands high above its closest retail competition, according to Online Marketing Trends, a digital media source. The gross annual revenue in 2009 soared to $405 billion. If Walmart suddenly disappeared, it would spew an unemployment lane of two million people. Walmart would be the 25th-largest national economic system, according to AOL’s Daily Finance. The $12 billion of capital expenditures Walmart spent over the past year is as much as the federal government’s aid for education and infrastructure in California.

 

Yet community developers can put up a traffic gate to hold the giant. Harford County, Maryland required traffic studies at 20 different intersections. While reducing the scale of superstores is critical to reducing negative impacts, superstores also affect other parts of land use policies. Many communities, for example, have more land zoned for retail development than could help the community. Large stretches along roadways could become designated for strip shopping centers.

 

Even small Walmart stores could undermine the growth of the downtown business districts. A better approach to accepting that type of compromise might be to limit retail zoning to the downtown or commercial districts. Community people could require that new retail projects pass the test of a community impact review.

The added layer of oversight could help maintain the size cap ordinance.

 

As Walmart’s situation exploded last over the past couple of years, workers protested more often on the lack of pay increases and the loss of housing subsidies, The American Prospect magazine expects disputes to continue Recent scandals of meat from diseased pigs in Chinese Walmarts to price fixing and bribery make the Chinese middle class wary of Walmart's reputation.

 

Reports that Walmart plans to close 100 China stores could boost the feelings of community developers. In America, Good Growth DeKalb offers a resource for concerned community developers. “We will be following the permitting process very closely, and will challenge Walmart on any legal grounds that emerge,” cites the group’s website.

 

Setbacks Reveal Dangerous Developer Intentions

 

A setback awhile ago for Good Growth DeKalb opened the way for a lawsuit against Walmart. Good Growth DeKalb operates as a community organization that has been fighting the attempt of Walmart’s developing agent, Selig Enterprises, from erecting a megastore in Decatur, Georgia.

 

The setback came when the DeKalb Zoning Board of Appeals said no to an appeal for the construction of the Walmart Supercenter in Decatur’s Suburban Plaza. However, Good Growth DeKalb could decide to open a lawsuit to block the project.

 

In any event, the notice came that communities for the first time have taken a stand, according to Robert Blondeau, one of Good Growth DeKalb’s co-leaders.

 

Blondeau confronted Selig in a meeting that revealed the way the corporation views communities. The meeting aimed to find common ground on the Suburban Plaza development. Yet Selig made it obvious that nothing would change Walmart’s plans. “The Selig position is pretty much all about financial concerns,” Blondeau said. “Good Growth is all about community relations and working together for smart development for walkable, sustainable, connected neighborhoods.”

 

Bill Wertz, a spokesman for Walmart had stated that Walmart wants to add 300 new jobs and millions of dollars in new tax revenue to the county. 

Blondeau countered the claims from Walmart about caring for the community. “There is very little interest in local small business,” he said. Selig is interested in creating just another strip mall that does not reflect the character of Decatur’s popular and successful development model.” 

Good Growth filed an appeal, which they said was a "necessary precursor to filing a lawsuit." 

Good Growth believes the actions points to a success.  “Someone finally was able to say to Selig that their redevelopment plans are not a welcome addition to the neighborhood,” Blondeau said.

 

Using Fiction — Miracles Stop a Corporation

 

Fiction can show a way to lash out the inner rage against outside super economic powers.

 

In the movie, The Milagro Beanfield War, the frustrated farmer Joe Mondragon, in trying to stop a corporation, commits two very different acts. He shoots a trespasser on his land and he accidentally opens a small irrigation control in a ditch that gives free water to his beanfield.

But Joe’s effort succeeded raising the consciousness of the community, engaging statewide support and delaying the corporation only with the nonviolent approach.

Which path poses the best for the community? Violence or nonviolence?

 

The story’s conflict lines up community members against a huge resort, which plans to use the community’s vital water supply for a planned golf course.

 

The outside interest promised construction jobs, but failed to mention the way the water use would affect the community long after the resort’s opening. The community hungered for more than the poverty level and became prime targets for the resort. The community lacked resources to find out details about the resort’s plans. 


Joe’s action to divert water for his beanfield took some needed water out of the resorts plans, but the result became a community conversation. The delay forced the corporation to run into out-of-town obstacles. The corporation had to hire a private type of special ops fellow, who alienated the town. Also, the growing conflict alignated the governor. And the continuing string of delays moved the sheriff to side with Joe despite his initial support for the resort. 

 

On the other hand, violent action created probems. When Joe fired a shot at a trespasser, Joe placed himself and the cause in danger. Joe became a criminal and could have been killed. The town’s population ran for their guns and only the intervention of the community’s sheriff averted a war scene.

 

The activist cause strikes a note many community people face each week. In the story, the town could have forgotten the key issue. That they supported Joe because of their resentment of water use laws, which favored the rich. The intro of a possible crime took the emphasis away from the key issue and threatened to lose the moral high ground Joe hoped to achieve.
 

The arid Southwest faces community issues that could be seen as similar to those in a thrid world. Author John Nichols, who wrote the novel, on which the movie was based, believed that it’s all about who has the water rights. People with money or power get the water while people without money or power suffer.


Activists can find a model with the movie by delaying a corporation, building a community with a conversation and by influencing the political system of the community. These tasks work more effectively with nonviolence and education. Just ask Joe.

 

Nebraska Options to a Mega-Store  

 

Communities might find the road to stop a megastore difficult if the store provides many supplies sought by residents. However, one old Caribbean phrase tells people that the shells in one beach might be found just around the bend.

 

The message from the Nebraska Cooperative Development Center (NCDC) shows how a community can turn its back on the giant superstore.

 

Several projects prompted community stores to start in rural towns. Those smaller stores focused on services that had been lost.

 

The Cody-Kilgore Cooperative Grocery grew when the town received a grant to build a straw bale building to house the grocery store. This venture occurred with assistance from the Center for Rural Affairs.

 

One school became interested in seeing how an entrepreneurship program could lead to helping the neighborhood. The school plans to use the grocery store as an educational aid. 

 

In a second example, when the Harrison grocery store changed ownership and no one picked up the sevice, a concerned group of citizens examined community ownership alternatives. A steering committee ran a confidential analysis of the financials, which prompted a local family into buying and running the store.

In another example, when the only grocery store in Potter closed in 2011, community leaders sought NCDC aid in setting up a steering committee that would study community ownership. Initial goals helped to answer questions of feasibility, and a report to a town hall meeting led the people to own and operate the store as a community-owned facility. Part of the goals included partnering with a neighboring town grocery that could help distribute supplies.

The NCDC would probably comment that these examples are ways to offer communities an alternative to the services that usually come from a superstore. The option exists of relying on local resources instead of bringing in mega-economic interests that might sap the community.

 

Development Advisory Committees Become a Weapon

 

Community activists can wield the weapon of Development Advisory Committees (DACs), which assist directors of planning and zoning. DACs view development from a technical analysis on regulations that apply to a proposed commercial effort. 

 

Such committees usual include people from public works, health, parks and recreation agencies. 

 

Also people from public schools should be encouraged to voice opinions.

 

At the first step, a developer submits a preliminary/site plan to a DAC, and the plan should include a traffic study,

 

That study should occur 30 days before the DAC meeting. Encourage neighbors to attend the study meetings, which are open to the public.

 

Community people anxious to stand for social change can use the law to hold up unwanted development. Activists should ask that traffic be analyzed for any intersection, which is studied. If traffic becomes reduced, then the service can be affected to an unacceptable levels from a Level of Service standard. Zoning challenges can require a mitigation by the developer. 

 

However, neighbor people should be aware that corporations like Walmart have a history of trying to bypass laws. In Calvert County, Maryland, Walmart attempted to construct two side-by-side stores. The town of Dunkirk relied on a law, which limited stores to under 75,000 square feet. Walmart decided to build a 74,998-square-foot store adjacent to a 22,689-square-foot garden center.

 

While Walmart insisted nothing could stop the development, county commissioners believe the plan violated the intent of the law and the planning board suspended approval of the permit until a review by the county’s attorney could take place.

 

However, communities can protect themselves. Some towns have created size cap laws to stop a retailer from avoiding such limits. Hailey, Idaho, for example, defines an "individual retail" establishment as one that may exist in more than one building.

 

 
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