Agenda - 06-03-2008-5b5e - Laserfiche WebLink

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3 • More than 4,100 independent video retailers have gone out of business since 1998. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video have a combined 8,500 stores and account for nearly half of all rentals.(7) • More than 40% of restaurant spending is captured by the top 100 chains.(8) • As local stores close following the arrival of a Wal-Mart superstore, the community often loses as much active retail space and as many jobs as it gains. An economic impact study of a proposed Wal-Mart store in Greenfield, Massachusetts, for example, found that the store would cost existing merchants $35 million in sales. Many of these businesses would close, leaving the community with 239,000 square feet of vacant retail space.(9) D. Lost jobs and lower wages Because big corporations and chain stores are constantly in search of lower wages, fewer labor and environmental restrictions and more lucrative incentives, they move frequently, leaving a trail of unemployment, abandoned property, and a diminished tax base in their wake. Inevitably, the best deal is to ship jobs to third world countries where costs are lowest because labor and environmental standards are essentially non-existent. Local taxpayers end up paying for the damage in the form of unemployment compensation and diminished property taxes. • According to Barry Bluestone of the University of Massachusetts, corporations moving to other states or overseas resulted in a loss ofbetween 32 and 38 million U.S. jobs in the 1970s alone and the U.S. Department of Labor documents another 43 million jobs lost from 1979 to 1996. (cited in Shuman, 1998). • A study of a proposed Wal-Mart store in St. Albans, Vermont, concluded that 76% of the new superstore's sales would be captured from existing businesses within the county, leading to a net~loss of 167 jobs over a ten year period.(10) • Retail jobs generally pay low wages with few if any benefits. According to the Vermont Department of Employment and Training, the median wage for the state's retail sales clerks is $8.60 an hour, higher than the national median of $8.02, but still well below what's considered a living wage. According to the Vermont Joint Fiscal Office, a single person needs to earn $11.78/hour to meet basic needs (housing, transportation, health care, etc.), while a single parent with one child needs to earn $18.83/hour.(11) • Supermarket employees' relatively high wages are threatened by the entrance of Wal- Mart and Target into the grocery industry. Both firms pay substantially lower wages and have fought efforts by their employees to form unions. Wal- Mart generally pays about $7 an hour. Most jobs are part-time, but even at 40 hours a week, an employee earns only about $14,000 a year. Many Wa1-Mart workers qualify for food stamps and other public assistance. Although the company offers health insurance, most of its employees cannot afford the annual out-of-pocket cost. Wal-Mart super-centers have been cited by administrative law judges for numerous violations of federal labor law. Lawsuits are pending against the company in more than thirty states for falsifying employee timecards and failing to pay employees for all of the hours they worked.(13) r