WHEN IT COMES TO engineering profits, Wal-Mart has no peer. But
when it comes to
playing politics, the mighty retail giant is strictly five-and-dime.
That
is not to say that the world's largest corporation is cheap when
it is
trying to bully its way into another targeted community. Wal-Mart
has shown a
propensity to throw the kind of money at cities it plans to invade
that its
employees rarely see. But its campaign tactics are shamelessly
small-town -- a
legacy, perhaps, of its humble beginnings in Bentonville, Ark.
Last
week, yet another community fought back against Wal-Mart's attempt
to
put one of its aircraft-carrier-sized superstores within its borders.
But the
company's crushing defeat in Inglewood (Los Angeles County) had
an unfamiliar
spin. If company officials can't convince an overwhelmingly working-class
city
in need of jobs and inexpensive goods of the benefits of their
store's arrival,
how can they persuade other towns that have become increasingly
leery of
Wal-Mart's looming presence?
It
certainly won't be through the company's governmental affairs
division.
When Inglewood city officials rejected Wal-Mart's bid to build
another 200,000-
square-foot version of discount shopping heaven, the company decided
to make an
end run and instead took the retailer's case directly to the voters,
who it
thought would be lined up in the express line waiting to cash
in on the company
's largesse. But it didn't help that the corporation's bruising
style of
business also extended to its politics -- the ballot measure would
have allowed
the company to bypass local controls in Inglewood on everything
from
environmental regulation to zoning.
In
other words, the company overreached. Imagine: Wal-Mart trying
too hard
to crush the competition.
The
case in Inglewood is already being cited by labor leaders and
politicians as an example for future campaigns against Wal-Mart's
attempts to
blot out the unionized retail world. But as much as company leaders
tried to
downplay its stunning loss (despite spending $230 for every vote
it received,
the measure lost 61 percent to 39 percent) there is no getting
around the fact
that Wal-Mart's reputation for cutthroat business practices has
made it a moving
target in California.
"This
is going to have big ripple effects," Los Angeles City Councilman
Eric
Garcetti said last week.
The
reason is fairly simple. Inglewood would seem to be a prime candidate
to
embrace Wal-Mart's promised retail land. It's a community of mostly
black and
Latino residents that has long struggled to attract business.
I lived in
neighboring Westchester at the time of the 1992 riots and watched
with sadness
as Inglewood's meager commercial districts burned over several
days. Even the
Los Angeles Lakers abandoned Inglewood, moving from their longtime
home several
years ago to the brighter lights of the downtown Staples Center.
Yet
in a city that would seem to be prime pickings for Wal-Mart, the
residents decided that they weren't willing to be steamrolled
by a corporate
colossus since they know they need good paying jobs to even afford
everyday low
prices. It's part of a growing trend -- disparate communities
ranging from
Oakland to Turlock to Los Angeles have either enacted ordinances
prohibiting the
company's flagship superstores or are in the process of fine-tuning
them to
stave off the strain of future big-box incursions.
The
ripples have now reached Sacramento. Two bills circulating in
the state
Capitol are designed to pressure Wal-Mart into providing better
benefits to its
employees. One would require the company to reimburse the government
for the
cost of providing health care to its workers, a slap at Wal-Mart's
penchant for
using state taxpayers to subsidize its labor costs.
Another
bill, awaiting its first hearing, would make giant retailers that
sell groceries pay for studies on whether they drive local companies
out of
business.
While
trying to legislate one company's grandiose expansion plans may
not be
the best way to promote a free-market economy, Wal-Mart has largely
brought
government down on itself. Its ruthless price-cutting methods
have increased the
flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. Its low wages (a Wal-Mart
"associate
" working in a superstore grocery department earns $10 an
hour, compared to the
average union grocery employee making about $17) were a central
factor in the
four-month long Southern California supermarket strike.
So,
armed with the growing knowledge of Wal-Mart's often debilitating
effect
on local and state economies, community leaders and public-policy
makers are
fighting back. They may not have the same war chest as Wal-Mart,
but their
determination can't be discounted.
