Wal-Mart Rumors Rile Labor Leader

Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin joined labor leaders and other elected officials at a press conference at City Hall last week calling for a moratorium on the rumored development of a Wal-Mart in Rego Park. McLaughlin maintained that until a study can conclude how big box stores affect other businesses and local communities in the city, the process needed to be curtailed.
"We need to slow down, to stop and pause," said McLaughlin in an interview with The Queens Courier, before he testified Thursday at a City Council hearing on big box stores. "I think it is a very complicated issue, but if we study the history, if we get the facts and present the facts, then it is a no-brainer."
McLaughlin, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, wants the city to examine the number of new jobs, amount of tax revenue and environmental effect that Wal-Mart would have on Rego Park and Queens.
He said studies done in Arkansas and Maryland indicate that Wal-Mart consumers lost advantages on 17 out of 19 marketable items and as many as three major competitors were displaced. The statistics also revealed that the retail giant lowers the tax revenue coming into a community, and that workers receive lower wages. Though Wal-Mart offers employees health insurance, he said, few opt into the plan because the deductibles are too high.
In addition, Mclaughlin said, the retail giant uses its market muscle to force manufacturers to send union jobs overseas.
"Wal-Mart basically says find a way to do it cheaper or we wont do business," he said, blaming the big box retailer for the decline of union jobs in the furniture, apparel and lighting industries. "We are a community of neighborhoods in the five boroughs," said McLaughlin, who has been on a media blitz campaigning against the big box retailer. "When I get up to Flushing, I walk to my store. My wife walks to get her nails done. Its a block away."
James Fanelli is a freelance writer.