By Howard Greninger
In an effort to gain support for a proposed wage ordinance before the Terre Haute City Council, three Wabash Valley unions are sponsoring a feature-length documentary on Wal-Mart by film director Robert Greenwald.
The scathing film called “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices,” which Greenwald partially financed, portrays Wal-Mart as a destroyer of small business, paying very low wages without adequate health coverage.
“We are looking at the construction aspect. Wal-Mart comes in and other big companies come in asking for some type of tax break and really don’t need it. It gives them a welfare check,” said Tom Szymanski, business representative and organizer for IBEW Local 725.
Wal-Mart is building a 203,819-square-foot Supercenter along Indiana 46 near Interstate 70.
The company will not receive a tax abatement. In 1995, Wal-Mart opened a supercenter on U.S. 41 South, south of the Honey Creek Mall.
Adjacent to Wal-Mart, Lauth Property Group is building a 47,899-square-foot shopping center called Sycamore Terrace.
Szymanski said Wal-Mart and other businesses will benefit from a taxpayer-funded road, New Margaret Avenue. The road, which is to be extended, was started through use of the county Economic Development Income Tax.
“Wal-Mart is not using one local contractor,” Szymanski said. “We are seeking a common wage, which sets a minimum standard. That sets up a level playing field for everyone who bids on those [construction] jobs. It prevents a run down to make a contractor have cheaper costs and weigh those cheaper costs upon the backs of workers.
“Business is a complex issue, it has overhead, it has materials and management styles. A lot of things go in to the cost of bidding a job and it shouldn’t be labor that has to bear the brunt of those costs,” Szymanski said.
A representative of Wal-Mart was contacted Wednesday for a comment, but did not return a message before press time.
The company, in a statement in November, said the film contained errors, which have not been corrected, such as the allegation that Wal-Mart forced out a family-run H&H; Hardware store in Middlefield, Ohio. The hardware store shut down nearly three months before Wal-Mart opened a store.
“After spending $2 million of his own money … it appears Mr. Greenwald is left with an error-ridden propaganda video that just doesn’t appeal beyond the special interests he represents,” Wal-Mart’s statement said.
Wal-Mart addresses the issue further at www.walmartfacts.com under the section “company statements.” Click on “The High Cost of Low Credibility.”
Related to Wal-Mart, the Terre Haute City Council is to consider a Tax Increment Finance, or TIF, district that would collect taxes from any growth in new assessed valuation, that is in new construction, starting from March 1, 2005 in an area that includes the new Wal-Mart and Sycamore Terrace.
That tax money can be used to help pay for improvements such as an extension of New Margaret Avenue, as well as improve existing roads and utilities in the TIF district. There are four existing TIF districts in Vigo County.
The City Council will conduct an informational meeting about that TIF district at 6:30 p.m. today in City Hall. H.J. Umbaugh & Associates, an Indianapolis accounting firm, and Ice Miller, an Indianapolis law firm, will explain the formation of that TIF district to council members.
The City Council at 7 p.m. will conduct its “sunshine session” to discuss a proposed ordinance that would require companies to pay a union-scale, called a common-wage scale, to construct or renovate a building if a company receives a tax abatement. The ordinance may be amended to include TIF districts as well as projects benefiting from local income taxes, such as EDIT.
The proposed ordinance also would require contractors and subcontractors on tax-abatement supported projects to hire workers as employees, not as independent contractors, which would require providing coverage of health-care benefits to workers “at a reasonable cost,” according to the proposed ordinance.
“We are not against the TIF or tax abatements, but just looking as far as tying tax-supported projects into the local labor market and hiring local people,” Szymanski said.
The Greenwald film will be shown at 6 p.m. today in the Wabash Valley Labor Temple, 311/2 S. 13th St., which is a half block off Wabash Avenue on 13th Street. A second viewing will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the IBEW Local 725 Union Hall at 5675 E. Hulman Drive.
The documentary is sponsored by the Wabash Valley Building Trades, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 725 and Bricklayers and Allied Crafts Local 4.
Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.
