[Mpls] chain stores

[Jennifer Pederseb]

Only living-wage jobs are adding to the neighborhood. Under-living wage jobs 
are taking away by making charities & public services subsidize their labor 
force and simultaneously keeping other employers out. We'd do better giving 
the tax incentive & other money directly to the people who need it, instead 
of seiving it through low-wage employers who keep most of it for themselves. 
It really pisses me off to know that a lot of what I donate to the Sabathani 
food shelf and local shelters is just covering the difference between what 
working people make and what they need to live - I do it because I know it's 
needed by the people who use the services, but in a larger sense it's just 
corporate welfare.

The biggest difference between, say, a Walmart that hires 300 people at 
$7.50/hour with no benefits and 30 little dollar stores that each hire 10 
people at the same $7.50/hour wage is that the 30 little dollar stores are 
building equity and hopefully some profits for 30 little proprietors, most 
of them local to the city, if not the neighborhood; the profit & value of 
the Walmart store get skimmed off to the Walton kids & other (mostly 
nonlocal) stockholders. It's not a lot of difference for the worker - 
sometimes working for a chain can be better, especially if you just pick up 
a retail job off and on. Though at least when there are 30 little dollar 
stores, you have a choice of quitting your job and finding another 
equivalent job if you don't get along with your boss or are under a 
discriminatory boss, or one that tries to force you to work unpaid overtime.

I think a basic requirement for *any* non-locally-owned business should be a 
living wage - otherwise we're just paying them, indirectly, for the right to 
have them in our neighborhoods.  Walmart definitely fails that test. I don't 
know about the McDonalds-owned chains. Starbucks is supposed to have really 
good benefits for their employees.

Jennifer Pedersen, Powderhorn

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