Dear Editor:
The deluge of anti-Wal-Mart letters is mind-boggling, especially
since they all seem inspired by United Food and Commercial Workers
Local 428.
Dear Editor:
The deluge of anti-Wal-Mart letters is mind-boggling, especially since they all seem inspired by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 428. Where were these protesters when CostCo came to Gilroy with a grocery section that could swallow up some local grocery stores? When Arteaga’s added to their little First Street business by opening a super market on Chestnut at Tenth? Go back a few years and check how much the union objected to the Nob Hill expansion and/or Safeway getting bigger. How long did the old Nob Hill store stand before being razed just recently? Wal-Mart’s present location will not go begging for a tenant too long.
Wal-Mart has provided jobs for some 200 people for the past nine years and, to judge by customer flow, it’s a popular place to shop. An enlarged Wal-Mart will employ some 500 people: more job opportunities for local folks. It will also bring in shoppers from Morgan Hill, Hollister, and spots in between.
A former Wal-Mart employee quits because she didn’t think her manager reacted well to her taking a day off to be with her daughter-in-law as she gave birth. She worked at Wal-Mart several years and says for three years she’d tried to get a union job at Safeway but never seemed to qualify. Wal-Mart paid her for those years as she acquired more skills so Safeway would perhaps eventually hire her. If there’d been no Wal-Mart to employ her, and she wasn’t qualified for a union job, what would she have done for income those three years.
The city, as represented by employed city staff, appointed planning commissioners and elected city council members, has a responsibility to see that residents have police and fire protection, emergency medical facilities; common areas for public use and zoning laws, building codes and numerous other laws to maintain and serve all citizens within the city limits. It is not their responsibility to see that non-union shops are excluded from the city.
As long as Wal-Mart meets zoning and building codes, the City Council should speed its growth into the new shopping area. After a lifetime of being over-shadowed by our neighbors to the north – Morgan Hill and San Jose – Gilroy is developing a shopping guide that, like the outlets, will attract shoppers from a wide area and provide local residents freedom from having to drive to far-away market areas.
James Brescoll, Gilroy
Submitted Thursday, March 13
