California Unions Declare War on Wal-Mart

How far will unions go to enusre that citizens of California never enter a Wal-Mart? Citizens there are about to find out.

When unions in San Diego failed to convince the San Diego City Council and San Diego residents that a ban on big box retail was necessary to “protect” that municipality from the horrors of low-priced consumer goods and hundred of jobs, union leaders decided to take their crusade statewide in an effort to ban Wal-Mart completely from the West Coast.

Less than 24 hours after the San Diego City Council rescinded a law requiring costly economic impact reports from developers of big-box superstores, a South Bay lawmaker says he wants some restrictions in a bill he plans to introduce at the state level.

Sen. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, said his bill, like the local measure, will target proposed stores 90,000 square feet and larger that dedicate 10 percent of floor space to groceries.

Vargas couches his opposition in the traditional rhetoric that banning Wal-Mart is a boon to the surrounding community, preventing harm to a local economy and small businesses. It’s clear from surrounding evidence, though, that the effort to ban Wal-Mart from San Diego, and subsequently the the state of California, is a smokescreen for isolationist – and arrogant – union policies meant to preserve and protect union jobs at all costs to the communities they claim to serve.

In the case of San Diego, the ban on big box retail was against the wishes of the community itself, and against the recommendations of the City Attorney, the city’s planning commission, San Diego’s Developmental Services Department, the code monitoring team and an independent budget analyst who warned the “overly restrictive” ban would lead to dramatic economic consequences. The city council originally adopted the ordinance only to have the mayor veto the measure. Faced with the death of the bill, union leaders waged an eleventh-hour effort with the city council to over-ride the mayor’s veto just before new city council members – who supported the mayor – were sworn in.

In response, citizens of San Diego, who according to polling data overwhelmingly opposed the Wal-Mart ban, collected nearly 60,000 signatures asking the measure be revisited. Only then, did the city council officially end the ban.

Not content to honor the will of the people, the unions are taking their battle to preserve their own jobs statewide – a goal they seem at ease announcing publicly now that the San Diego law has met it’s end. One union leader, the head of the UFCW in San Diego, even took to Twitter to throw down a gauntlet, taunting, “Today we found out which Democrats on the City Council have balls… and guess what? It wasn’t the boys.” (The only council member to vote against repeal was a woman), and “Dear Wal-Mart, We are relentless. In case you didn’t notice. Love, Lorena.”

Now, turn the tables for a moment. If Wal-Mart’s CEO took to social media to taunt union executives, there would not only be endless Congressional investigations, where union labor-shunning big box retailers were hauled before panels of Democrats who would question them endlessly on their “over-the-top” efforts to push their agenda on the American people, but the National Labor Relations Board would spend the greater part of the next month looking up new ways to fine Wal-Mart and it’s allies. It’s up to the citizens of California here, instead, to police the union agenda and ensure that the UFCW and others do not get their way at the expense of the California economy and California jobs.