The Large Retailer Accountability Act Clearly Supported By DC’s Progressive Community
On the 10th of July labor and neighborhood activists held a rally outside the Wilson Building to support passage of the Large Retailer Accountability Act. It would raise the minimum wage in certain big box stores to $12.50 an hour. Wal-Mart has vowed to abandon at least half their plans to open stores in DC if this passes. Rev Hagler told them not once but twice to “Go to Hell” during his speech!
I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard any pastor tell anyone to go to Hell, but if anyone deserves it, Wal-Mart does, especially in light of their resort to extortion when bribery failed.
Workers from several big box stores complained about being unable to afford to shop where they work due to law wages. One man who works at a Wal-Mart said he could not even afford to have his own place due to the wages Wal-Mart pays.
After the rally, activists went into the Wilson Building to confront several anti-LRAA councilmembers, then observe the vote. I could not go with them, as the Wilson Building is an ID and bag search building.
Wal-Mart has also crudely threatened the DC Council. On the 9th of July, less than 24 hours before the final vote on the LRAA, Wal-Mart lobbyists bluntly said they could cancel their Skyland and two other unbuilt stores if the bill is signed into law. They also said they might abandon (“reconsider”) the three stores under construction. Well, this extortion won’t exactly break DC”s legs, as a lot of people would rather have an abandoned Wal-Mart than an open one in their neighborhood!
This Just In!
from Grassroots DC’s Coordinator
DC’s City Council voted for the Large Retail Accountability Act. The vote was not unanimous. Councilmembers Yvette Alexander (Ward 7), Muriel Bowser (Ward 4), David Catania (At-Large), Mary Cheh (Ward 3) and Tommy Wells (Ward 6) all voted against the bill. We must still wait to see if Mayor Gray signs on or vetoes the bill, but it looks like years of pressure from community groups, labor and individual activists is turning the tide against a Walmart invasion of the District of Columbia. Is this what democracy looks like? I think maybe so.
According to Thomas Jefferson, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I’m not a big fan of Jefferson, but he may have had a point. So, what should we be holding vigil over in order to secure our liberty?
How about a seat at the table when the city decides to “redevelop” a long-standing public housing complex like Barry Farm? Unfortunately, at the June 25, 2013 meeting held by the DC Housing Authority to introduce the companies competing to redevelop Barry Farm Dwellings, only “confirmed” residents were allowed to attend. In other words, none of those pesky advocacy organizations like Barry Farm Tenants and Allies Association or Empower DC, who are trying to keep Barry Farm residents from being permanently displaced once the renovations are underway, as has happened to so many other former public housing residents. According to Rick White, Director of Public Affairs & Communications for the DC Housing Authority, press was welcome to “cover the event” but would not be “permitted to attend the business meeting.”
Would Jefferson have objected to excluding the public and the press from a meeting to plan how public funds will be used to redevelop public property? As a proponent of a free press, I think maybe yes. And so should we all.
What else should we be holding vigil over? Hm? I don’t know, maybe voting rights. As a slaveholder, Jefferson might not have objected to the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says, “times have changed.” So perhaps, the right of the descendants of slaves to have access to the ballot is something that we should be holding onto. I know plenty of folks who don’t vote and don’t think it matters. I don’t agree but I understand their frustration.
Take for example the sanitation workers of Memphis, Tennessee. Conditions for sanitation workers in Memphis today are surprisingly similar to conditions in the 1960’s. The city is threatening to privatize their jobs, workers are not earning a living wage, and working conditions are hazardous and unsafe. The video below (produced by AFSCME’s Amy Hendricks) shows that they are still struggling for the same rights that Martin Luther King Jr., came to Memphis to help them win before he was gunned down.
The voting rights that King and so many others fought and died for did not win the sanitation workers the liberty they deserve. Yet, one has to wonder how much worse things would have been for them and for the rest of us without the right to vote, which until yesterday, many of us took for granted. Perhaps we’ll find out. In the meantime, we should do whatever we can to hold public officials accountable.
Protesters at McPherson Square Park, image by Carlos Valeros
Occupy K Street is a group of people of diverse cultures that got together for their voices to be heard on issues that are current and relevant. They are the voices for all those in poverty, those who lost their job during the recession, those with college degrees working minimum wage jobs, those who are paying off their student debt and those who are facing foreclosures on their homes. They fight for justice which would be an organic change in our society. “It’s just not fair that the rich gets richer why the poor gets poorer”. We have to decide what it is that we want to do and get together so that our voices can too be heard. If God is willing, the world will become a better place.
Daniel del Pielago and Abigail De Roberts of the Latino Media Collective interviewed these individuals to better understand their outlook. There were quite a few segments but we chose just a few in the following audio segment that aired on WPFW on October 12, 2011:
It’s been a minute since we’ve done a post on Walmart, but that’s not to say that DC’s progressive community has stopped working on the issue. Currently, the group No-Ward-4-Walmart is calling for an anti-Walmart presence at the Historic Preservation Review Board Hearing (October 27th at 2:10pm, 441 4th St. NW, Room 220 South) where they will consider designating the old streetcar storage barn at Georgia and Missouri Avenues NW a historic landmark which would make it impossible for developer Foulger Pratt to build a Walmart on that site.
Respect DC takes the position that it’s okay if Walmart comes to DC so long as they sign a community benefits agreement that would guarantee that any Walmart within the District provide its workers with a living wage. Not much word on the community benefits agreement, but on October 20, 2011, Respect DC teamed up with Occupy DC and staged a flashmob at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser at Union Station. The fundraiser featured Walmart board chairman Rob Walton as well as Wes Bush, CEO and president of arms manufacturer Northrop Grumman.
As its name suggests, the group Walmart Free DC believes that DC doesn’t need any Walmarts: they not only fail to provide a living wage to their employees, but they also have a tendency to drive small businesses into the ground. Empower DC also opposes Walmart coming to the District. This summer, Grassroots Media Project intern Roshan Ghimire and hip-hop artist/community activist Head-Roc teamed up to produce the following video Keep DC Walmart Free, which makes our position pretty clear.
In addition to hosting a series of screenings of The High Cost of Low Price throughout the city over the summer, Walmart Free DC has posted several links that make a strong case for their position. LGBT activist Robby Diesu’s post sums up much of that information and makes a few points that are missed on most of the other anti-Walmart websites.
Why the GLBTQ Community in DC Needs to Reject the Wal-Mart Invasion of Our City
By Robert Diesu
In November 2010 Wal-Mart decided that DC would be its next target in their attempt to amp up their already impressive market share of the retail world. They have met a lot of resistances so far, but not enough. Wal-mart has a special place in the minds of us who are progressive, leftist, and even liberal, and that is the vast majority of us can think of only one word to describe them; evil.
In the District, Wal-Mart plans on bringing in four stores by 2012. Wards 4, 5, 6, and 7 will hopefully not be the home to these planned stores. Each of the four stores in the invasion are going to be 80,000-100,000 sq feet. Doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy? But they have not signed leases at any of the four locations, though.
Yet, we as queer people have some extra special reason’s to oppose the evilness that is Wal-Mart, and mainly they don’t support our liberation as a community. To this date, they do not have an anti-discrimination policy that protects trans people and other non-gender conforming peoples. This prompted the National Gay and Lesbian Task force to come out against them invading New York and hopefully soon, DC as well. [1]
They donate to crazy right-wingers, who are actively working against our interest in congress, and by donate I mean hundreds of thousands of dollars, not five grand like Target. Members of the Wal-Mart board of director and the Wal-Mart PAC have given $455,500 to current members of the “Tea Party Caucus” in Congress (this also includes Tea Party backed candidates who lost)[2]. Not to mention $1,431,000 to candidates who have actually voted against voting rights for DC.[3]
Oh, and they think we are a “highly controversial issue”[4], as a reason why they don’t donate to any National LGBT groups. Since when is treating other human beings with respect and dignity a controversial issue? The last time I checked, our liberation and the emancipation of our community from oppression was a good thing, not something controversial? What should be highly controversial is that a city government that is as progressive as DC would even think of allowing Wal-Mart in our city-limits.
Now there is this fad among our community to boycott companies who are against our liberation and it always seem inept to me. (I mean Target is right next to my gym, and is constantly calling my name.) Yet, here is a chance for us to actually stop a corporation that opposes our liberation from even getting a foot in our city. Wal-Mart Free DC is a group that is working actively to oppose all and any Wal-Marts in our city. They are working to build a multi-racial, multi –generational, multi-class, and multi-gender citywide coalition who opposes Wal-Mart from even building a single store in the District. Check them out if you want to stop this invasion of our city!
Workers Rally at Giant Food in Greenbelt, Maryland
When you buy a box of cereal or a roll of toilet paper from a Giant in Maryland or the District of Columbia, chances are those products were stored at a warehouse in Jessup, Maryland before they went to your neighborhood grocery store. More than 500 employees of that warehouse in Jessup are in danger of losing their jobs. Giant plans to turnover operations of the shop to a notoriously anti-union company, C & S Wholesale Grocers, who will more than likely outsource the work to a non-union warehouse in Pennsylvania. This fear is justified by C&S’s closure of a distribution center in Woodbridge, N.J., which resulted in more than 1,000 layoffs.
To stop the loss of area jobs, hundreds of grocery and wholesale workers held a rally at a Giant in Greenbelt Maryland last Sunday, March 13, demanding that Giant respect the community that supports it by employing locally. If you weren’t able to attend the rally but recognize that the loss of jobs in the region is none too good for the local economy or if you feel solidarity for the workers because you yourself or someone you know has been or is at risk of being outsourced, you can at least keep yourself informed thanks to the following audio report produced by Netfa Freeman: Giant Food Worker Rally
For more information on the campaign itself and how you can get involved go to the Justice at Giant campaign website.
Giant is hoping this little maneuver will save them $10 million annually in non-labor costs. Turnout at the rally was perhaps better than it’s been for most labor demonstrations because of events taking place in Wisconsin, Ohio and as far flung as Egypt and Tunisia. It seems that workers around the world are finally coming to the conclusion that those of us on the relatively far Left have understood for a long time––the corporate oligarchies that control our economy don’t really have the best interest of the working- and middle-class at heart. Our elected officials, who are bought and paid for by those same oligarchies, will put the interests of their corporate masters ahead of the electorate every time.
So, when corporations like Giant Foods and elected officials like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and DC Mayor Vincent Gray say, “times are tough. We all have to take a hit.” We know they don’t really mean we as in everyone, todo el mundo. This may seem like common sense to your average progressive, but we haven’t been good at convincing most of the working- and middle-class of these facts. By bailing out those that caused the worst economic calamity since 1929 and having no empathy for the rest of us, our elected officials are making the case for us.
The sizable rally against Giant and the support for striking nurses at Washington Hospital Center are ripples of this growing realization that we are feeling here in the District of Columbia. Will it translate into a growing fight against austerity measures proposed to balance the city budget? Will more people get on board the effort to keep the city from selling off publicly-owned properties to developers or stop the corporate take over of public schools?
We as individuals cannot be at every rally. We cannot stay on top of every issue but we can get the word out about the events that we are able to attend in just the same manner as Netfa Freeman. Netfa Freeman is a volunteer radio producer at WPFW. He co-produces the public affairs program Voices With Vision. I am quite pleased to announce that he will be teaching a radio production class for the Grassroots Media Project which will meet on four consecutive Wednesdays starting March 23, 2011. There schedule is as follows:
Wednesday March 23 ……………….. 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Wednesday March 30 ……………….. 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Wednesday April 6 ……………………. 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Wednesday April 13 ………………….. 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Class will be held in the media lab at Empower DC, 1419 V Street NW, from 6-8pm. To sign up, email the coordinator at liane@grassrootsmediaproject.org. There are only six slots available.
If this movement that we are finally seeing is to be sustained, it will need a voice. Sign up for this radio production class and help give the movement, locally at least, the voice it needs to sustain itself.
After the rally, activists went into the Wilson Building to confront several anti-LRAA councilmembers, then observe the vote. I could not go with them, as the Wilson Building is an ID and bag search building.
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