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tv   [untitled]    December 12, 2011 9:00am-9:30am PST

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quality career-oriented jobs as opposed to the types you see at many of the big boxes. a dollar spent at a local business, 65 cents will recycle into the community verses 1/4 if you spend that same dollar of a corporate king. there are many good reasons to limit the big boxes. when you lead target command to san francisco with two locations fast forward, there will have five or six in five years as they continue to wrap the city. they are huge threat to a neighborhood shopping areas because they carry a vast array of business, market like crazy and so on. everyone knows the kind of thing. there is an impact. last thing before my three second tour now, a wide to give you a snapshot of the impact of a big box fiscally.
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i thought that might be of interest. >> it would be helpful to know how long you have been operating. >> for locations in the city. the first one opened sometime in 1920. it has been in my family for 50 years and we have four locations here. we have a good brand in the city and we do a good job with customer service and filling people's needs. during our first year in our mission street store which is fairly close to filelowe's. that has had a huge financial impact. the other is through attrition and. we have shrunk our business by
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six meaningful positions. and that is not compared to the 50 positions they have hired. i do not know what they have today versus what they have opened their doors. that is a real impact on our city as well as our business. we're surviving and not going anywhere. i thought the numbers would be meaningful. i also mentioned we have someone from b & b pet stores. >> i want to further what was said. pet food express is a 44 store chain. if we're going by the, that was
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presented in proposition g, how did a 44-store chain wind up a mile away? it has been less than a year. that has been nine months. we finished a fight to petco. that would have opened up if they took double digits from our right side as pet food expressed it from the left. that would have been the end of our store. the end of two other small stores as well within 1 mile, less than a mile from the location. there is no way that small stores can compete with the formula retail. is not fair that these stores are in business 50 years, at 10,
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20, 30 years and have a big box a thank-you for your client base and your customer base. we're taking over now. we will put you out of business. the consumer is stuck with the prices that the big box stores will set. there will not have the convenience of lower pricing, customer service which is very personal at this level. we have customers that have incredible relationships with their children, with children -- people who have had babies born and bring in their babies and it is a personal relationship. there is a lot of money being recycled into small san francisco community, if they buy small. it does not translate into big bucks. supervisor mar: can you elaborate on the money stays
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within the neighborhood if you invest in small business? >> there is no question. we presented the study. and 65 cents of the dollar stays circulated in our communities where 25 cents stays in the community if it is that true big bookstores. that is incredibly important for our intimate neighborhoods and i feel we need to tighten up these regulations on formula retail. make sure the fabric of san francisco including all the storefront, unique store fronts and one-of-a-kind stores stayed true to the san francisco fabric. otherwise it will not recognize this in the next five or 10 years. supervisor mar: i mentioned earlier, the q4 crossing the
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bay. hal-- thank you for crossing the bay. it is important in the board talks about the kind of development. that you include a question on the impact of workers. very little did we say what happens. i will give you the data in terms of the impact on walmart. inthithere is a lot of data ande found that walmart paid 14.5 cents less. we found that there were
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[unintelligible] around 60% less. we looked at a job based health care coverage. 5% of -- fewer had health care compared to retailers. we looked at the average wage there were paying. that would have been at 2005 levels. 8% of the federal poverty line for a family of four working at a typical wal-mart hours. we saw that when walmart enters the county, you lose 150 workers on average. for every job they create you'll lose 1.4 jobs. in terms of what trying to impact on how they treat their workers, we ran a simulation. the question of what would happen if you have them pay $12 an hour. we found that it would increase
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the overall cost of wal-mart. a $3.2 billion. that could increase the wages and survive on 1.1%. >> you look at a number of other cities in regional areas. have there been any changes -- my guess is you are suggesting we increase labor standards in big bucks or formula retail stores. have there been impacts in other areas where other jurisdictions have done that? >> we have not found that. oftentimes people say if you increase wages, assume it is a one-for-one trade off. the fact is if you examine the work force they are below the poverty wages. the way increase goes as a proportion well the impact of
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price increases spread out over the population themselves. supervisor mar: thank you. i now have a number of cards. hough people can come forward. you do not have to speak in that order. >> i am stephen cornell. our store has been there since 1905. one of the things that the other speaker spoke about and i would like to elaborate, we never had legislation that made us do anything.
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and in district 5. we have been around long time. we do not need laws to do that. the investment in having good businesses that will be around a long time is good for the committee. you're talking about the formula retail. i went through a hearing for formula retail. one of the things that bothered me was pulled straight where this hearing was, the planning
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department instead of using the entire district which is 14 blocks long, they used six walks. it was convenient to say we had some any formula retail in six blocks. in this case a paint store. it was used for the convenience of getting this business in. if there is where to be a long [no audio] fully applied. one of the things is to look broader. use polk street and is not part of our district. there is a million for miller wait till there. the q4 time. braxton afternoon. -- good afternoon.
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just to speak in favor of of with the results of this hearing. the very first big issue that our city worked on was the chain's store ordinance. and the follow-up. it is crucial. i want to highlight something that was touched on in the presentations and make it bigger. every one of those green check boxes you saw of a big box or a chain store that has its headquarters outside of the city, 40% or more of that money goes out of the city and is not combat.
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40% is huge. it is penny wise and pound foolish to open a store to get tax revenue and hire workers that are at low wages. at the same time you are throwing at 40% of revenues of those businesses that would stay here in the city if they were local businesses instead. finally i would like to point out that -- you have seen me on any -- many occasions fight a big box or a chain store. there are a lot more of them that i would have helped fight. some of which got through. had i been able to i would have gotten involved in. what that points to is that they're under strain. cannot fight every single little fight. we need a broader, stock ordinance to cover all the bases
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including the banks. occupy issuing weekend do with local banks. -- is showing that we can deal with local banks as well. >> i am with sf loma. i want to make a couple of points. one of the things that studies have shown over and over again is that while formula retail creates jobs, it also costs jobs. as you heard before, especially in urban areas. the job creation is no more and sometimes less than the job loss. one of the things i wanted to point out about what rick said is he said through attrition. he has gotten rid of six jobs. one of the things people do not think about is the domino effect. if his mission street store closed, it would impact many
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other stores in that area. there is a domino effect. that area has been affected by the fact his business is down 16%. fewer people are coming to that area. lowe's is affecting cole hard work. if goes away, others will go in there is your job loss. you have heard about how much money is lost when locally owned businesses are impacted and how much they get back to the city. the one thing i wanted to mention about the economic study that was done by civic economics is that there is good is. one of the things we did is we asked what would happen if people spend 10% more of their money, switched it from a chain stores to local stores.
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not spend more money, just shifted. it would create 1300 jobs and $190 million in economic input -- output in the city every year. supporting local stores is good for the economy. >> on the website for sf loma, there are a number of studies. the money -- the number you have heard and if you talk about it, to be fair, if we're talking about retail just for the time being, you spend $100, $43 is reinvested in the local economy when you spend at locally owned. when you spend that in chain stores, $28 is reinvested.
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in the local economy. a local store has a local account, all local lawyer, a local person who does their windows, all that is spent by corporate chain stores elsewhere. the money is recirculated. businesses are supporting other local businesses with their money. that does not happen with chain stores. supervisor mar: it looks like sfloma.org. our next speakers. pffthank you for being here. >> i work at walmart, store number 2418. i started six years ago.
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supervisor kimsupervisor cohen:? >> in richmond. my bring home was $15,000. i have a family of four. i live in a low-income apartment. with the holidays coming, i get to work more hours but it means i see my kids less. i have a 17-year-old daughter i can say goodnight to. a 5-year-old son that i tell him have a good day of school, that is it. our health care just went up. i was off work for a couple of months and i had to go to of physical therapy. to walk in the door, it cost
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$45. and then after the hour-long, i got build from kaiser permanente in average of 400 -- 4 rudder $30 for the extra service. -- $430. i only bring home $15,000. excuse me. a full-time associate. this is provided. at a price. part-time associates, only the workers get the benefits. there are families and children, they have to pay. supervisor mar: much of the framing of what goes on in wal- mart stores is driven by the public-relations office of walmart from tv ads to the
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mainstream media. i will ask you to respond to how walmart portrays itself and what is the real story from the workers perspective. >> walmart says they pay living wages. they do not. $13 an hour and my organization believes know. you do not. most of us do not make 13 after being there six years. we want to hold walmart accountable for the promises they make going into the community. thank you. supervisor cohen: do know how much wal-mart employees would be making inside san francisco? >supervisor mar: there is no walmart in san francisco. supervisor cohen: your story is in placerville. part of the corporate culture
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is it is standard for them to work for six years. it is standard to work six years before you can get paid $13 an hour. >> i do not make 13. supervisor cohen: you come in the door, does everyone make minimum wage? how do you advance? >> every year you get a review done and depending on your work performance for the year, that is how you get a raise. condo thank yosupervisor cohen:. supervisor mar: our next speaker. >> ron phillips. i was unjustly fired. i was one of the lucky ones that got my job back. i will tell you my story which
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might help you out. only are they unjustly paid, they have a tendency to fire people for any reason. fire people. i am a full-time employee. part-time and they do not have to pay benefits. the turnover rate is extremely high. like she was saying. her hair -- you get a pay raise at 40 cents a year. if you work that is wrong with that system. even if they move, a lot of people would be part-time. and on welfare.
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where is the benefit? >i am nervous. that is the way you -- the hours are long and har. -- hard. we have to work those hours to pay our rent. supervisor mar: why do you f --- did you form our walmart? >> it is like benefits. we don't get good benefits. we got to pay more than normal people. if we call in today's sick we
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get paid for one day. most places will pay of for two days. wages are not adequate. but you have heard. a lot of people have to work long hours or unemployment will subsidize that. we are trying to do our best to fight. supervisor mar: our next speakers. >> [speaking spanish] >> my name is alicia. i am oscar, i will be transmitting. she is a member of poder, a 20-
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year organization. she is a member of the committee. >> [speaking spanish] >> one of the issues we're concerned about is about the proposed opening of fresh and easy in the mission community on 23rd. they started interviewing people in the committee. we have done over 225 service. >> [speaking spanish] >> so one of the issues that we're raising in this survey is 97% of our respondents should be full time rather than -- offer
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full time with them part-time. >> [speaking spanish] >> another thing we found out is 90% also said that fresh and easy should be required to pay a living wage. a wage of dignity to its workers. we found out they pay $10 but community members are saying they should pay a living wage. >> [speaking spanish] >> people are saying that living wage should be $14.30 in san francisco.
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>> [speaking spanish] >> that is it for my part. i wanted to say for you to support our community and support our efforts. to make sure that fresh and easy offers wages, dignified wages, living wages, especially in our neighborhood which is predominantly latino, low-income neighborhood. thank you. supervisor mar: thank you next speake. next speaker. >> i am a member of the
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committee and also with poder. we did 225 service. this was to educate anthe community about the fresh and easy store. this was mostly done in spanish. some of the preliminary results as alicia mentioned. 98% of the people said fresh and easy should be required to hire a high proportion of residents from the mission, because residents are worried that because of the high unemployment in the area for, they are worried about that. they're worried that -- they want to be hired as well. on average, they said at least 64% of the workers from fresh and easy should be mission residents. supervisor cohen: how many? >> 64%.
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the stores do not hire cashiers to work at the store. instead, they are at self checkout machines. employment opportunities at the store are very low. 87% of the people we surveyed said that fresh and easy should provide as many jobs as possible, and not be allowed to replace workers for machines. [bell] thank you. supervisor mar: we have some questions. supervisor cohen: how many stores are there? how many san franciscans are hired? >> they actually promised they would hire at least 50% residents from the neighborhood. they hired only 15%. supervisor cohen: where are you