Walmart succeeds using Saul Alinsky playbook

In the 1980s a community organizer, Barack Obama, was using Saul Alinksy tactics on Chicago's far South Side, with little success. On those same jobless streets, Walmart used the Alinsky playbook over the last few years to bring more jobs there than Obama ever did.

The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required) explains:

But the agitation for a Walmart also came from the affected community. The Chicago Defender put it well in an editorial in May: "While the nation is slowly emerging from a horrific recession," the paper wrote, "Black communities, like [Ald.] Beale's 9th Ward, are still in the throes of depression. The only thing that ends that kind of economic downturn is jobs. That is what most Black leaders keep telling Congress and the president. It is what most community activists say is necessary to stop some of the violence on our streets. This community needs jobs. And yet, we have aldermen taking the position that if they cannot secure 'good' jobs for their constituents, they would rather they stay jobless. That is indefensible."

How Alinsky would have reacted to all this is not an easy question to answer. On the one hand, he had strong roots in the union movement. On the other hand, he always said that community organizing was supposed to be about helping communities agitate for their own choices.

Walmart spokesman Steven Restivo said the approval took years of outreach. The company worked with key politicians, listened to local concerns, and used its own community action network to get the word out and mobilize affected communities. Many people, Mr. Restivo says, hadn't known that all Wal-Mart employees, full- and part-time, have access to health coverage. Others were encouraged to learn that an entry-level job is often only the start of a career: More than 70% of Wal-Mart's store managers started as hourly associates (Walmart's word for its employees).

Beale says Chicago's largest food desert, an area with out access to supermarkets, covers part of his ward. Lately First Lady Michelle Obama has been decrying food deserts and their negative effects on children's health, including obesity.

Technorati tags: Wal-Mart retail business big box economy news jobs economy politics walmart food deserts illinois politics unemployment chicago Illinois alinsky Barack Obama Obama michelle obama nutrition