Marathon Pundit: With Olympics in rear-view mirror, Wal-Mart wants to add Chicago jobs

As you've probably heard, the 2016 Summer Olympics won't be coming to Chicago. Which means that the city must focus its efforts on other items. Illinois' unemployment rate is at 10 percent, it is certainly higher on Chicago's South Side, where Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, wants to build its second store in the city, and the first to sell groceries.

Members of Chicago's City Council, with a few exceptions, are more interested in pleasing their union enablers.

One of those exceptions is Alderman Howard Brookins.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

"The Olympics were a side show to my cause and an excuse for many to say, 'We ought to put this off so that we can have peace with the unions,'" said Brookins, whose ward includes the site.

"Now that those union workers aren't gonna be employed building these fabulous buildings all over the city, at least this is some immediate help for those local tradesmen. . . . And it's a tremendous help to stop the leaking that continues to plague our city with people going to the suburbs looking for a bargain."

Brookins said the argument that Wal-Mart needs to pay a living wage "rings hollow." He vowed to produce copies of union agreements negotiated by the United Food and Commercial Workers representing employees at Jewel and Dominicks.

"Wal-Mart is paying the same wages. It's a red-herring for them to start talking about living wages," Brookins said.