Wal-Mart: Aim for Fairness
Wal-Mart didn’t just lose its campaign to ram through a giant “supercenter” in Inglewood. It was crushed, 60.6% to 39.3%, in Tuesday’s voting after spending more than $1 million to get the initiative on the ballot and promote it. That comes to at least $230 for each “yes” vote -- fewer than 4,600 of them.
Company executives, however, seem to be having trouble understanding the voters’ message. A spokesman issued this statement: “We are disappointed that a small group of Inglewood leaders together with representatives of outside special interests were able to convince a majority of Inglewood voters that they don’t deserve the job opportunities and shopping choices that others in the L.A. area enjoy.”
A small group of Inglewood leaders? Try four of Inglewood’s five City Council members, its state Assembly representative, its U.S. congresswoman, former elected city officials, local clergy and residents of 30-plus years. All fought Wal-Mart’s bullying attempt to bypass -- no, eliminate -- local control of everything from zoning to environmental regulation. It should give Wal-Mart pause about trying the same kind of sweeping end-run on local control again.
As for outside special interests, a wide range of unions certainly helped to lead the opposition. But Wal-Mart’s plans to build 40 supercenters in California and the sweeping demands of its ballot measure made the election of national concern.
Besides, wouldn’t the Arkansas-based Wal-Mart chain qualify as an outside special interest?
Organized labor was credited with the initiative’s defeat. Both local and national union leaders fear that Wal-Mart’s aggressive expansion into grocery sales will drive unionized grocery stores out of business. Months before Tuesday’s vote, California’s three major supermarket chains used the Wal-Mart threat to push for pay and benefit cuts during a bitter strike and lockout. Wal-Mart’s sheer size and reach give it the power to offer the consumer low prices and to shape not just local markets but global ones, as numerous studies, including a Times series, have documented.
Many of those who voted against the Inglewood Wal-Mart initiative oppose supercenters, period. Others, including this editorial page, were turned off by a narrower issue: the retail giant’s ballot-box bullying.
As wary as we are of Wal-Mart’s spillover effect on local businesses, we believe that the local planning process is the place to address potential problems and to work with developers to resolve them. For that reason, we applaud the Los Angeles City Council for agreeing to additional public hearings on a proposed ban on supercenters. The city, instead of trying to ban all Wal-Mart supercenters, ought to take a more flexible approach, one that accounts for communities’ differing needs and desires and that doesn’t unfairly single out Wal-Mart.
If Wal-Mart is to be expected to play by the rules, the rules have to be fair.
The Inglewood election, in the end, was also about playing fair. Wal-Mart knows that there are rules and that it can’t run a separate fiefdom outside the reach of elected government.
