When the Tribune Attacks: Union Bashing isn’t a Substitute for Discussing the Issue

The Tribune’s latest piece of trash about Chicago’s Wal-Mart battle begs the question: Why is it so hard for the Tribune to admit that people in Chicago really want Wal-Mart to pay a living wage?

At least 5 separate times, the editorial accuses Aldermen of being stooges of labor or being out of step with their constituents. But the polls and referendums taken in Chicago show a much different story.

I don’t doubt the Tribune’s poll that 68% of Chicagoans would take another Wal-Mart in Chicago, although I suspect that just about any other national retailer would score higher numbers.

What the Tribune can’t bring itself to mention is this: People can want a Wal-Mart and want to require Wal-Mart to pay a living wage before it opens up shop in Chicago. In fact, in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, the idea that large, rich corporations have a duty to pay employees a living wage is the norm, not the Trib’s laissez-faire economic policies.

If the Tribune wants to stop shilling for Wal-Mart and start a reasoned discussion on the issue of Wal-Mart, it could start by reminding its readers of the following five facts before it attacked Chicago Aldermen of being union drones:

1. “Results of a referendum in 21 Chicago wards in support of the big-box living wage ordinance that Daley vetoed: Yes: 12,823. No: 3,163.” Reports the Beachwood Reporter.
   
   
2. Over 80% of Chicagoans surveyed during the Big Box Living Wage fight in 2006 wanted Wal-Mart to pay a living wage. “The ordinance, co-signed by 33 aldermen, has 90 percent support from African Americans,” according to the Sun Times.
   
   
3. A second poll, taken after a massive public campaign by Wal-Mart and Mayor Daley to convince Chicagoans that the Big Box Living Wage ordinance would drive retailers out of Chicago showed support by 71% - almost 3 out of every 4 Chicagoans.
   
   
4. A referendum in the 35^th Ward recorded 84% support for the idea of making Wal-Mart and other large retailers pay a living wage. In the 12^th ward, the referendum passed with 83% of the vote, and in the 49^th ward, it passed with 77% of the vote.
   
   
5. Despite Wal-Mart contributing $285,000 to anti-living wage Aldermen, 6 Aldermen who voted against the Living Wage law lost their re-election bids in the 2007 elections. Four were replaced by candidates that ran on a pro living wage platform, and one of the leaders of the Big Box Living Wage campaign, Toni Foulkes was elected Alderman.
   

Frankly, the Trib’s a proudly, openly Republican paper and I think it’s clear that they can’t see past their ideology on this one.

An open letter to the Sun Times newsroom staff:

First off, welcome to the fight! Now stop writing articles that screw the labor movement.

Note: the Sun Times staff writers are organized through the Chicago Newspaper Guild and recently voted 83 - 22 to reject major contract concessions demanded by the potential buyer of the CST. The owner has responded by announcing he won't buy the paper without them, and the SunTimes weighed in by - what else - threatening to close the whole business down.

As a whole, the media often reflects the sentiments of the corporations they work for and the class bias that many in the middle class (including reporters) have against unions. So it’s not unusual that the (unionized) staff of the Sun Times has consistently turned in articles that contain everything from outright bias against unions to the constant framing of issues in a way that’s helpful for corporations and harmful for working men and women.

Take this article about the City of Chicago budget crisis where Mayor Daley is threatening to lay off over 1,000 workers if unions don’t gut their contracts work rules and agree to what amounts to a 10% pay cut. It’s exactly the same predicament that the Sun Times writers are in: accept the boss’s demand to rewrite the contract or lose your jobs.

Sun Times writer Fran Spielman wrote several articles about the issue, but never questioned the need to choose between layoffs and pay cuts. Even worse, she gives brief mentions to AFSCME’s alternative proposal, but never asks the Mayor or others why they won’t adopt it.

Another series that shows that the Sun Times writers haven’t make the connection between the stories they write and their own situations was the Illinois State Pensions series by Tim Novak, Art Golab, and Chris Fusco.

“It's a frightening picture. It costs more than $800 million a month for state and local governments to cover their pension burden…”

It’s so frightening that the reporters never mention that, according to those figures the average pension is a merely $25,000 a year, or that state employees aren’t eligible for Social Security. So you have a few people gaming the system, while most are using the pensions for exactly what they should – a stable retirement.

Did Novak, Golab and Fusco write a sensationalized pension story that people will use for years to trash public employees unions just days before they voted to save their own union pensions? I’m betting that Spielman is hoping someone comes up with an alternate proposal to the layoffs vs. pay cut proposal of the prospective Sun-Times buyers.

Mostly, I hope all the Sun-Times writers read the comment sections on the articles about their fight with the proposed owners. It’s the usual crud: union members are lazy, they’re corrupt, be happy you have a job, you’ve got it better than me so that makes you a jerk, unions are outdated or inefficient, etc.

I hope when they read that stuff being written about them, they realize that how they are contributing to that.

I hope they read that stuff and realize that those are clearly the thoughts they’ve had – because that’s pretty clear in their writing.

I hope that they realize that what people say about them isn’t true – if a unionized reporter’s not a fat, lazy s.o.b. with a corrupt union who’s a jerk for looking to keep pensions and work rules that most people don’t have – then Jewel workers aren’t any of those things because they want their union to keep Wal-Mart from undercutting their wages and benefits. I hope they realize that a State prison guard isn’t any of those things because he wants a pension when he retires from putting his life on the line everyday.

I hope they realize that when unions members won’t accept it when the boss gives them two bad choices and says “pick one”, that those unions aren’t inefficient, outdated, lazy, corrupt or stupid.

Those union members are just like you.