[Washington Post] D.C. politicians gave final approval Wednesday to a bill requiring some large retailers to pay their employees a 50 percent premium over the city's minimum wage, a day after Wal-Mart warned that the law would jeopardize its plans in the city. "Just because you're the largest employer in the country, don't think we want you here!"
The retail giant had linked the future of at least three planned stores in the District to the proposal. But its ultimatum did not change any politicians' minds. The 8 to 5 roll call matched the outcome of an earlier vote on the matter, taken before Wal-Mart's warning. "We don't want your filthy jobs here! They're ucky!"
"The question here is a living wage; it's not whether Wal-Mart comes or stays," said council member Vincent B. Orange (D-At Large), a lead backer of the legislation, who added that the city did not need to kowtow to threats. "We're at a point where we don't need retailers. Retailers need us." Isn't the question of whether Wal-Mart comes or stays kind of involved with whether there's any wage at all? But it's nice to be needed, given the city's unemployment rate. As of May of this year it was 8.5 percent, which is only one out of twelve people.
Well before it had any solid plans to open stores in the District, Wal-Mart joined the D.C. Chamber of Commerce and began making inroads with politicians, community groups and local charities that work on anti-hunger initiatives.
The campaign was matched with cash. Through its charitable foundation, Wal-Mart made $3.8 million in donations last year to city organizations including D.C. Central Kitchen and the Capitol Area Food Bank. It has kept a prominent local lobbyist, David W. Wilmot, on a $10,000-a-month retainer.
Whether or not Wal-Mart needs the District, it had spent the past three years wanting to enter the city in a way no other business had. Activists celebrated Wednesday's vote, saying the company, which reported net income of $17 billion on sales of $470 billion in its most recent fiscal year, could afford to pay better wages. That's a little over three and a half percent profit, if your calculator's busted.
But the council action threatens to halt several developments anchored by Wal-Mart in neighborhoods long underserved. Southeast Hospital went under about ten years ago because of the number of uninsured who were showing up bleeding to death in the emergency room.
"Nothing has changed from our perspective," Wal-Mart front man Steven Restivo said in a statement after the vote, reiterating that the company will abandon plans for three unbuilt stores and "review the financial and legal implications" of not opening three others under construction. The stores would have anchored their sites, with the remaining buildings filled in by restaurants, specialty shops, that sort of thing. I think in the Super-Dooper Wal-Marts they're all under the same roof.
The company's strategy had to this point been calibrated to avoid political conflicts in a city of liberal sentiment, where the retailer's earlier entreaties had been met with deep skepticism. A half dozen people out their with signs always provides cover....
Well before it had any solid plans to open stores in the District, Wal-Mart joined the D.C. Chamber of Commerce and began making inroads with politicians, community groups and local charities that work on anti-hunger initiatives. You gotta hand out lotsa cumshaw in the district if you want to get anything done, and they just don't stay bought.
The campaign was matched with cash. Through its charitable foundation, Wal-Mart made $3.8 million in donations last year to city organizations including D.C. Central Kitchen and the Capitol Area Food Bank, according to a company front man. Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy was furiously chewing her cud and thinking... it has kept a prominent local lobbyist, David W. Wilmot, on a $10,000-a-month retainer to smooth relations with elected officials.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2013 11:42 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
Aha The compulsory unemployment. Obviously a ply to keep the low productivity on benefits rather than work their way from the democrat plantation.
#2
Cut your losses, Wal-Mart, and build stores just over the line in Maryland (near a D.C. bus or Metro stop).
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/11/2013 13:12 Comments ||
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#3
Barbara, IIRC, Prince George's and Montgomery Counties aren't much better than DC.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/11/2013 13:22 Comments ||
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#4
Fucked yourself, didn't you D.C. Council, Of course you'll blame Wall Mart for refusing your "Ultimatum" But you don't get those jobs.
No cumshaw for you.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/11/2013 14:45 Comments ||
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#5
"D.C. politicians gave final approval Wednesday to a bill requiring some large retailers to pay their employees a 50 percent premium over the city's minimum wage"
"Some" large retailers? Could it be that other large retailers get a pass because they are unionized?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/11/2013 15:49 Comments ||
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#7
They dont need jobs in DC. Their point is the government will care for them. How dare those of us the the flyover states demand the people of DC work for a living...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/11/2013 16:52 Comments ||
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#8
I once asked a lib, "Why do you hate WM but love tar-jeh, its the same kind of store doing the same thing?"
He looked at me like I was speaking Klingon and gargling kitten heads at the same time.
Maybe free (or very cheap) busses from a Metro station/bus stop near the Potomac to a special Wal-Mart in Northern Virginia? [Of course, they're probably just as crazy in NoVa. :-( ]
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/11/2013 18:27 Comments ||
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#10
Barbara, maybe so in Arlington/Alexandria. And Fairfax county too. Not so much in Prince William, Stafford and Spotsylvania counties.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
07/11/2013 18:58 Comments ||
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#11
The campaign was matched with cash. Through its charitable foundation, Wal-Mart made $3.8 million in donations last year to city organizations including D.C. Central Kitchen and the Capitol Area Food Bank. It has kept a prominent local lobbyist, David W. Wilmot, on a $10,000-a-month retainer.
Oftentimes the bribes don't work with this type of clietele.
Posted by: Besoeker in the Mtns. ||
07/11/2013 19:12 Comments ||
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#12
Walley's Mart has provided more access to the lower income classes to the staples and garbs of life than any government program. Instead of being appreciated, the sock puppets of unionism would prefer the less fortunate to do without than one more union 'enforcer' have to forgo funding the union leadership.
#2
"[The obscure Economic Development Administration] accepts the Inspector Generals recommendations regarding its information technology incident... We take the privacy and IT security of all our employees, grantees and other partners seriously, which is why the agency acted out of an abundance of caution based on the information provided to us.
$1.06 million worth of "caution" to be exact.
If it wasn't for that, I'd have thought it was something out of a BOFH story.
#3
spent $1.06 million on building a temporary infrastructure, pending long-term IT solution; $823,000 on hiring the cybersecurity contractor; $688,000 on contractor assistance for a long-term recovery solution;" and $4,300 to destroy $170,000 worth of tech equipment.
So somebody's cronies got a big wad of cash, too.
But ... if your mouse (or keyboard) was infected with a virus (paging Dr. White!), couldn't you just "isolate it" in a dark closet(or even unplug it)?
I didn't read where anyone got fired or disciplined, either.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/11/2013 5:59 Comments ||
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#4
Idiots, virii only affect the hard drive.
NOT The mouse, NOT the monitor, (You get the rest)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/11/2013 8:01 Comments ||
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#5
It is possible that they are idiots, but it is also possible that there are viruses present in the hardware that we buy from China. Any USB device you plug into your computer can hose it real good in its runtime memory space, which most virus programs don't check well.
#6
RJ, you're using common sense. Common sense is outlawed by federal regulations and law.
You or me, we'd just replace the hard drive. However, in government, that means bidding or going to a existing support contract. All of which are avenues of graft, corruption, and patronage (ie minority set asides). The amount of work time and processing to simply replace the hard drives quickly exceeds the cost of replacing the whole machine.
Now if you took it upon yourself to haul the machines down to a local repair/support dealer and get them all swapped out, you could literally be prosecuted and face criminal time. Remember the 'machine' is really good at picking on the little people.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/11/2013 9:05 Comments ||
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#8
I do have a question for the techs.
Monitors/TVs are becoming a bit more than just display; with internet access on their own, usb movie/music, even built in skype. Would this open them up to virus and/or hacking?
#10
All government networks should be black sites, prevented from connecting to the internet at all. They can have isolated computers to do that if they need to.
Such sites should have equipment made in America and they should have their USB ports plugged with glue.
Code can be added to NVRAM on system boards (not just hard drives). I worked on a project (customer was NSA/CIA, etc)on how to wipe NVRAM and prove you'd wiped it so somebody was considering that as an avenue of attack a decade ago.
#16
Indeed, Snowy Creature, it looks like IBM gold. Kids these days, never get to groove on high speed typing due to poorish keyboards. Quality keyboards are greatly under-rated and my favorite was on a Compugraphic EditWriter and 2nd favorite was from an IBM PS2/70.
#17
Y'all must have noticed that I seldom misspell words now, I've got a Keyboard that locks each key as I type (Another obsolete word) and only lets one key work at a ttme.
(No it wasn't a special, just what the computer had with it. (Stuck in a drawer 'till needed)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/11/2013 17:03 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Washington Post] D.C. 
