Walmart In NYC? City Council To Debate The Possibility

Walmart has made no secret of its intentions to open stores in the five boroughs. Now the city council has scheduled a meeting to discuss what impact Walmart would have on New York.

The debate, which will include members from the Small Business, Community Development and Economic Development committees, will not include a discussion of or vote on any specific legislation. But labor groups opposed to Walmart are likely to encourage the Council to look into a law like one passed earlier this month in San Diego.

That law requires retailers of more than 90,000 square feet who sell groceries to conduct an economic impact analysis before their stores can be approved.

Walmart's interest in New York comes on the heels of the announcement that Brooklyn's first Whole Foods is on its way in Gowanus.

What effect do you think Walmart moving in would have on the city and its small businesses? Would New Yorkers turn their nose up at a company plagued by controversy over workers' rights? Or would many cash-strapped residents grit their teeth and take advantage of the shopping conglomerate's lower prices?

Comments

[libinnoway]

05:14 PM on 01/06/2011

Welcome to NYC Wal-Mart! Please drive the little rip off stores and the overpriced poor service grocery stores out of the city. These stores have been ripping off customers for decades! They treat the customer and their employees like crap. These so called Mom & Pops are nothing but a scourge on the backs of the average and poor New Yorker.

[Arts4u]

06:40 PM on 12/29/2010

As a large customer to most of its vendors, Wal-Mart openly uses its bargaining power to bring lower prices to attract its customers. The company negotiates lower prices from vendors. For certain basic products, Wal-Mart "has a clear policy" that prices go down from year to year. If a vendor does not keep prices competitive with other suppliers, they risk having their brand removed from Wal-Mart's shelves in favor of a lower-priced competitor. Critics argue that this pressures vendors to shift manufacturing jobs to China and other nations, where the cost of labor is less expensive.

In the mid-1990s, Wal-Mart had a "Buy American" campaign. Yet by 2005, about 60% of Wal-Mart's merchandise was imported, compared to 6% in 1995. In 2004, Wal-Mart spent $18 billion on Chinese products alone, and if it were an individual economy, the company would rank as China's eighth largest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia, and Canada. One group estimates that the growing US trade deficit with China, heavily influenced by Wal-Mart imports, is estimated to have moved over 1.5 million jobs that might otherwise be in America to China between 1989 and 2003. Wal-Mart is the single largest importer of foreign-produced goods in the United States, their biggest trading partner is China, and their trade with China alone constitutes approximately 10% of the total US trade deficit with China as of 2004.

[libinnoway]

07:00 PM on 12/29/2010

Good for them!

[Arts4u]

07:09 PM on 12/29/2010

So, I'm guessing you condone China dominating the US as well as the EU in terms of economic strength? Clearly you must be retired and not still in the job market.

[Arts4u]

06:23 PM on 12/29/2010

Wal-Mart has also faced accusations involving poor working conditions of its employees. For example, a 2005 class action lawsuit in Missouri asserted approximately 160,000 to 200,000 people who were forced to work off-the-clock, were denied overtime pay, or were not allowed to take rest and lunch breaks. In 2000, Wal-Mart paid $50 million to settle a class-action suit that asserted that 69,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had been forced to work off-the-clock.The company has also faced similar lawsuits in other states, including Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Minnesota. Class-action suits were also filed in 1995 on behalf of full-time Wal-Mart pharmacists whose base salaries and working hours were reduced as sales declined, resulting in the pharmacists being treated like hourly employees.

[libinnoway]

07:00 PM on 12/29/2010

I don't know about off the clock. I'm salaried, the clock means nothing. You have to work until the project is finished. Sometimes that means 12 or 14 hour days. I don't get paid for the extra time. While I agree with you about the fact that Wal-Mart has sometimes been in the wrong, in NYC the practice is extremely common. Most employees at the mom and pops don't make much above min wage. And many are illegal so they don't make that. I bet if you look at the real picture, in NYC Wal-Mart would be far more likely to follow wage and labor laws than the small mom and pops.

[Arts4u]

07:10 PM on 12/29/2010

I'm curious what you do for a living?

[Arts4u]

07:17 PM on 12/29/2010

So, when your job gets outsourced, we can assume you will be alright with that?

[Arts4u]

06:13 PM on 12/29/2010

Because Wal-Mart employs part-time and relatively low paid workers, some workers may partially qualify for state welfare programs. This has led critics to claim that Wal-Mart increases the burden on taxpayer-funded services.[47][48] A 2002 survey by the state of Georgia's subsidized healthcare system, PeachCare, found that Wal-Mart was the largest private employer of parents of children enrolled in its program; one quarter of the employees of Georgia Wal-Marts qualified to enroll their children in the federal subsidized healthcare system Medicaid.[49] A 2004 study at the University of California, Berkeley charges that Wal-Mart's low wages and benefits are insufficient, and although decreasing the burden on the social safety net to some extent, California taxpayers still pay $86 million a year to Walmart employees.

[Arts4u]

12:32 AM on 12/26/2010

It's very true that our nations addiction to cheap has ruined our country, particular­ly in terms of employment­. It was a grave mistake to allow the outsourcin­g of over 5.5 million jobs over the last decade. Over Bush's term only 3 million were created.

The largest contributo­r to jobs creation in this country used to be small business, and we have allowed the domination of the marketplac­e by large corporatio­ns such as Walmart...who squeeze everything they can out of their employees and wipe out surroundin­g small businesses­leaving a smaller # of jobs available in the community.

For every 1 job at Walmart, the local community loses 1.8 local jobs.

40,000 manufactur­ing facilities closed over the last decade due to our addiction to junk.

[libinnoway]

04:13 PM on 12/29/2010

Fine don't shop there if you don't want to. Keep being robbed by the sorry retailers in NYC. I don't care. But don't deny the rest of us the ability to choose to shop where we want to shop. A jar of mayo in NYC 7.58 are jar of mayo at Wal-mart 2.49. You do the math. My budget says shop where I can get it for less.
In the 1800's the manufacturing base in the US was in the N.E. As costs went up (often driven by union wage increases) they moved to the south. As they continue to go up the manufacturing will continue to move. 50 years from now it may be somewhere else.

[Arts4u]

06:22 PM on 12/29/2010

Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton once said, "I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We're going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment.

By shopping there, one on contributes to declining pay everywhere. The solution is not just the quick fix of shopping at Walmart.

[Arts4u]

06:46 PM on 12/29/2010

Until the mid-1990s, Wal-Mart took out corporate-owned life insurance policies on its employees including "low-level" employees such as janitors, cashiers, and stockers. This type of insurance is usually purchased to cover a company against financial loss when a high-ranking employee (i.e. management) dies, and is usually known as "Key Man Insurance." Critics derided Wal-Mart as buying what they called "Dead Peasants Insurance" or "Janitor Insurance." Critics, as well as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, charge that the company was trying to profit from the deaths and excess mortality of its employees, and take advantage of the tax law which allowed it to deduct the premiums. By controlling the level of health care benefits provided to employees, the company was uniquely situated to create a favorable mortality experience on its retained portfolio of life insurance policies. The practice was stopped in the mid-1990s when the federal government closed the tax deduction and began to pursue Wal-Mart for back taxes.

[libinnoway]

06:54 PM on 12/29/2010

I've worked for small and large companies. Large companies have treated me better. I'll agree that the the free trade agreements have been a problem. But the truth is American workers require higher wages. Part of the reason for that is the government itself. Higher taxes are a huge part of why wages are higher. States with lower taxes almost always have better economies. The same goes for countries. Look at Europe to see where we are headed.

[Arts4u]

07:22 PM on 12/29/2010

I cannot imagine American's being able to live on $3 a day, can you?

[libinnoway]

11:42 AM on 12/09/2010

NYC needs Wal-Mart! The stores in the city though mom and pop are over priced rip offs. They hire illegals and pay them slave wages. NYC needs more competition not less. If you really want to help the little guys Wal-Mart is what we need. We need to stop the price gouging done by the crappy stores. Wal-Mart would be an asset to the city. Have you looked at all the people who leave the city on the weekends to do their shopping outside of the city? That is tax revenue that the city is loosing. You complain about the benefits at Wal-Mart. Do you believe the mom and pops are paying there illegal workers a fair wage and benefits? I hope and pray that Walmart comes. Target and Costco are already here. I really don't understand why it's ok for them and not for Wal-mart.

[Arts4u]

12:47 AM on 12/26/2010

Walmart are bottom feeders who destroy the employment base of a community. If you want to have fewer jobs in your area, as well as the country - keep thinking short-term.

http://walmartwatch.com/

[libinnoway]

04:04 PM on 12/29/2010

No more so than any national chain. High prices in NYC are a scourge on the poor and middle class. The M&P's are horrible. They deserve to go out of business. That's what happens when you treat customers badly. They have been protected and have a poor attitude. Don't tell me that they pay a living wage, they don't. They don't offer benefits. They very often hire illegals and pay below min wage. I leave the city almost weekly to avoid the sorry M&P's.

[libinnoway]

06:22 PM on 01/06/2011

The real bottom feeders are the mom and pops who pay nothing and use slave labor right here in our own back yards.

[Arts4u]

06:31 PM on 12/29/2010

Wal-Mart has been accused of allowing illegal immigrants to work in its stores. In one case, federal investigators say Wal-Mart executives knew that contractors were using illegal immigrants as they had been helping the federal government with an investigation for the previous three years. Some critics said that Wal-Mart directly hired illegal immigrants, while Wal-Mart claims they were employed by contractors who won bids to work for Wal-Mart.

On October 23, 2003, federal agents raided 61 Wal-Mart stores in 21 U.S. states in a crackdown known as "Operation Rollback," resulting in the arrests of 250 nightshift janitors who were undocumented.Following the arrests, a grand jury convened to consider charging Wal-Mart executives with labor racketeering crimes for knowingly allowing illegal immigrants to work at their stores. The workers themselves were employed by agencies Wal-Mart contracted with for cleaning services. Wal-Mart blamed the contractors, but federal investigators point to wiretapped conversations showing that executives knew some workers did not have the right papers. The October 2003 raid was not the first time Wal-Mart was found using unauthorized workers. Earlier raids in 1998 and 2001 resulted in the arrests of 100 workers without documentation located at Wal-Mart stores around the country.

In November 2005, 125 alleged undocumented immigrants were arrested while working on construction of a new Wal-Mart distribution center in eastern Pennsylvania. According to Wal-Mart, the workers were employees of Wal-Mart's construction subcontractor.

[Zelyony1750]

03:24 PM on 12/07/2010

If the big wigs allow Wal-Mart in, the smaller businesses can kiss their incomes bye-bye!
We have seen it in many communities across the country. Wal-Mart is the Communist China's govt outlet store. The only thing the U.S. produces is garbage that is sent overseas to make more stuff.

[Random User]

10:35 PM on 11/29/2010

I think that Wal-Mart will probably displace some small businesses. There are no two ways about that. However, I don't think that they will have the same horrific effect in New York that they do in smaller, rural communities. It's not like New Yorkers are going to drive their pickup trucks to Wal-Mart and load up on two weeks' worth of groceries and other merchandise. If that were true, the other big box retailers would have forced small retailers from NYC a long time ago.

[Arts4u]

12:50 AM on 12/26/2010

No, it's because the existing big box retailers have not reached that tipping point. If you let another in, particularly one as predatory as Walmart,it would have devastating effects.

[bluguy8]

10:40 PM on 11/29/2010

Walmart kills small businesses . not everyone wants cheap stuff from China. Theres walmart in the burbs

[scotsense]

01:50 AM on 11/30/2010

what food is coming from china then?

[G FORCE]

10:16 PM on 11/29/2010

STAY OUT OF NYC!!
WALMARK KILLS!!!!!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[bluguy8]

10:31 PM on 11/29/2010

agreed- NYC can do without Walmart

[brooklyncitizen]

10:07 PM on 11/29/2010

what's to debate? Bloomberg already okayed it I'm sure, now we'll just have to live with it.

maybe they will put it in that god-awful times square as a home away from home for the tourists from "real america".

[brunella]

07:38 PM on 11/29/2010

Walmart kills small/independent businesses - what's to debate, NYC City Council? Are you Council-Members for local business owners...or just more generic chain store garbage? How about some incentives/subsidies for the mom & pop's, to complement all of the lip service aimed at small-business/middle-class voters at election time? PS yes, we are still bristling at your vote ignoring term-limits in the last mayoral election.

[bzb]

07:37 PM on 11/29/2010

I will continue to support my local mom and pop stores.

[libinnoway]

08:03 AM on 01/03/2011

Then you'll continue to be ripped off by merchants that also buy their products from China, treat their illegal and legal employees like crap, don't pay a living wage or provide benefits, and treat their customers badly. All the while thinking that you have helped by stopping a new Wal-Mart that would have provided jobs to a community that has very few, built a new store on property that was blighted and provided a place for other retailers to open up shop in a new retail center. All you have done is hurt the poor and middle class. Go pat yourself on the back and say what a good person you are.

[temashana]

07:22 PM on 11/29/2010

Oh lord please do not let these criminals infiltrate NYC. They have destroyed too much of America already. Keep out!!!

[scotsense]

07:39 PM on 11/29/2010

no please come, I am sick to the back teeth of paying criminal prices for food

[bluguy8]

10:32 PM on 11/29/2010

so go to the burbs and shop them

[brooklyncitizen]

10:13 PM on 11/29/2010

walmart will be the last one...we have Home Depots, we have had K-mart forever now, we have Target, and all those awful gap/bed bath etc. stores...look around the change has already happenned.

[Rollingstone423]

07:18 PM on 11/29/2010

Wallmart is EVIL

[brooklyncitizen]

10:11 PM on 11/29/2010

It's all relative. People are poor. Walmart is affordable.I've been to super Walmart in Florida and people are buying food...it is 20-50% cheaper than supermarkets in the area. And it is not crap.
I know the other stuff is and I understand the "evilness" but folks are struggling and they meet that market.