Wal-Mart, Chicago, might compromise on "living wages"

Now that Chicago's municipal elections are over, it appears to be time for Wal-Mart and the City to revisit the big-box "living wage" debate.

Last year, in a bill sponsored by Alderman Joe Moore, the Chicago City Council passed a "living wage" ordinance that would've effected only "big box" stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot. Mayor Richard M. Daley vetoed that bill, and the Council failed to in its attempt to override.

From Crain's Chicago Business, free registration may be required:

Despite post-election chest thumping, the first signs of a potential compromise are emerging in the political war between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and union-led advocates of a big-box minimum wage bill.

Sources on both sides say they're willing to sit down and talk at length, and they raise the possibility of a deal in which Wal-Mart would get zoning approval needed for more Chicago stores in exchange for agreeing to support a wider minimum wage bill that applies to more than the super-sized retail outlets known as big boxes.

Wal-Mart recently backed a similar law in Maryland, and while such a proposal would stir intense opposition from some partisans on either side of the fray, it might also provide a starting point for substantive discussions, sources say.

But sometimes, as with Palestinian extremists, people prefer to fight. When responding to the possibility of adding other retailers to the "living wage" battle, Madeline Talbott of ACORN said:

I don't know if you want every Walgreens and CVS on your case," Ms. Talbott says. "Wal-Mart is a great political enemy to have.

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