Wal-Mart won't build D.C. stores if living wage bill passes

Wal-Mart says it won't build three stores it had planned for the D.C. area if lawmakers approve a bill that would force the retailer to pay its employees at least $12.50 an hour. Wal-Mart had been planning to build six stores in Washington. 

|
Jae C. Hong/AP/File
Aworker pushes shopping carts in front of a Wal-Mart store in La Habra, Calif in May. Wal-Mart has said that it won't build three stores it had planned Washington if lawmakers approve a bill that would force the retailer to pay its employees at least $12.50 an hour.

Wal-Mart says it won't build three stores it had planned for the District of Columbia if lawmakers approve a bill that would force the retailer to pay its employees at least $12.50 an hour.

Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. had been planning to build six stores in the nation's capital. But a Wal-Mart representative wrote in an op-ed published online by The Washington Post Tuesday that the retailer will abandon plans for three of those stores if the bill gains final approval from the D.C. Council Wednesday. Wal-Mart says the bill will also jeopardize three stores already under construction.

The bill is backed by worker advocates and unions that say employees of big-box stores should earn a "living wage." It applies only to stores doing business in spaces of 75,000 feet or more.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Wal-Mart won't build D.C. stores if living wage bill passes
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0710/Wal-Mart-won-t-build-D.C.-stores-if-living-wage-bill-passes
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe