Walmart plan for more Chicago stores looks like a go

Dennis Gannon, the president of the Chicago Federation of Labor opened the door to more Walmart stores in Chicago--possibly dozens of them. Walmart will agree to pay its starting associates a minimum of $8.75 an hour--and they'll get a 40-cent raise in a year. The retail giant will hire union construction workers to build these stores.

Now that Gannon has signaled his approval, most aldermen will fall in line and approve Walmart's expansion into the nation's third-largest city. The first store to be built will probably be in the city's Pullman neighborhood. Yesterday I listened to Alderman Anthony Beale (9th) on Don Wade & Roma's WLS radio show decry the high-unemployment rate in his ward---he said in the ZIP code of 60628, which covers part of his ward--it is 40 percent. Walmart has agreed to hire workers who live nearby its new stores. Beale said the city's largest food desert--an area lacking a supermarket--is in his ward.

Good news for tough times.

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