It’s an urban/rural race to the top of the pay scale for minimum-wage workers

I was amused to learn that the City Council will likely be considering a measure that would boost the minimum wage for workers at Chicago-based companies.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed off on $15 by 2025; will we see demand for $15 by 2021?

The measure in question by 4^th Ward Alderman Sophia King wants to see the minimum wage – currently $13 an hour – rise up to $15 by the year 2021.

WHAT’S THE BIG deal? Illinois law already calls for increases in the minimum wage, with the General Assembly just this year passing a bill that boosts the minimum pay to that $15 hourly rate by the year 2025.

If the city does nothing, that $15 rate eventually will be achieved. It will apply to employees of Chicago-based companies just as much as those of companies based elsewhere in the state.

Yet King argues that the city needs to have a higher pay scale, so to speak, than other parts of Illinois, because the city has a higher cost of living than other parts of the state.

It’s important, King argues, that Chicago reach the $15 hourly rate for adults stuck working in menial jobs before everyone else in the state. Thereby making it a race to the top of the scale between those working in Chicago and those working elsewhere – which usually is more a matter of where one happens to live.

NOW I’LL ADMIT that in some aspects, urban life carries a higher price tag.

Although I also know of people who insist that suburban life is more expensive. Often these are the people who live their lives in parts of the city that those with more significant incomes can choose to avoid living in.

They say that a move to the suburbs would wind up being too costly.

More often than not, they’re likely to be the individuals who most likely are forced to eke out an existence on an income based on a minimum-wage job – often doing some sort of scut-work that those of us with opportunities can avoid having to do.

KING: Pushing for minimum wage raise for Chgo?

SO IS IT really the case that a Chicago worker needs a higher minimum-wage pay rate than someone elsewhere in Illinois? It doesn’t really matter how low a cost-of-living rate is in a community.

Truth be told, a minimum wage isn’t going to stretch that far. Even at a $15 hourly rate, one is not going to “live like a king” if they’re stuck laboring at a job that many people would associate with a teenager who’s never had a job before in their lives.

Who, by the way, would not be impacted by these increases in minimum-wage rates. Companies will still be able to pay those workers less -- $4.25 an hour, if under 20.

Which makes me wonder if an increase in the minimum wage rate (an issue that is popular amongst a certain type of person with activist mentality) will only result in more teenagers getting hired.

WE’LL GO BACK to walking into a fast-food franchise and seeing pimply-faced teens trying to earn spending money, rather than a middle-aged person whose job skills are such that they have few other options in life.

I do realize labor is labor. A job is a job – particularly since there have been points in my own work life that I did jobs whose only real purpose was to bring in a paycheck, no matter how minimal. There was nothing noble about the work – other than it brought in an honest income that enabled some bills to be paid.

Will minimum wage fight shift to City Hall?

But I wonder what happens come the mid-2020s when Illinois’ minimum wage rate reaches $15 – some four years after Chicago. Will city-based workers wind up demanding yet another raise in their rates?

Will we become too accustomed to city-based people in menial jobs having to be paid just a tad extra than those elsewhere doing identical work, leading to the urban-rural brawl of the future!

  -30-

What should minimum wage be, & would I take the job no matter what?

As much as I want to believe I support the concept of people who actually have to work for a living, I have to confess to feeling a little squeamish about the ongoing battle to bolster the minimum wage for fast food workers.

Yes, I can recall the time in my life (about three decades ago) when I worked such jobs – and I can recall an era when my take-home pay was based off a $3.30 hourly rate.

THAT WAS THE minimum wage back in the early-to-mid 1980s when I was in high school and college (usually trying to concoct a stash of cash so that when I went back to campus in the fall, I’d have some money to be able to subsist on.

Life is more than just classes and paying those fees for books. The fact that I had a memorable college experience was due to the trash work I did back then – literally handling the types of jobs at time that led me to smell like assorted cold cuts and be permanently repulsed by the sight and texture of head cheese.

I can recall working at a Subway sandwich franchise, then later in a delicatessen – learning how to achieve the perfectly-sliced piece of genoa salami – six or eight of which go with a nice slice of cheese to make a quickie sandwich that can tide over one’s appetite.

I did that for my $3.30 per hour, which could come to about $200 every couple of weeks. Which makes me fortunate that I didn’t have to rely on such a low income to actually cover all my life’s daily expenses.

SO WHEN I learn that the minimum wage in Illinois has reached levels of $8.25 (a dollar more than the federally-mandated level and also the minimum wage that scut work employees for Indiana-based companies get) and that there are people who want to raise it to between $10 and $13 per hour, I almost get envious.

It’s almost enough to make me wish I could have got that kind of money back when I had to resort to such work. Then I remember the kind of tedious, mind-numbing labor I had to do to get that money, and I feel fortunate that I’m not in a position where I have to do such labor.

These thoughts have popped into my head in recent days in learning that some employees of McDonalds (a company I never worked for, but I had one cousin who literally wore those polyester jump suit-like outfits they wore back in the day while asking, “Do you want fries with that?”) are getting $1 per hour raises.

I’m not going to begrudge anybody who can get a little more money, since even at the higher rate, nobody is going to get rich being a grill operator at McDonalds. Not unless you can pull off the Willie Wilson (remember him, the former mayoral candidate) saga of scraping together your pennies and buying a franchise of your own.

ACTUALLY, IT’S ONLY going to be the McDonald’s employees at the company-owned stores who get the higher pay rates. Those who work at franchises that are privately-owned (which are the bulk of them) will continue to get their current rate of pay.

But the idea that someone trying to make sure they don’t burn themselves from the oil of frying the French fries pulling in nearly $10 back when I would have been paid $3.30 for the same work seems a bit surreal.

Then again, I’m old enough to remember when picking up the two major newspapers meant plunking down two quarters – NOT the $2.50 it costs now for anyone who still feels compelled to pick them both up!

Somehow, it sounds like an overpay – even though like I already wrote, I wouldn’t trade places with those workers to get their higher rate of money.

IT MAKES ME feel good that the closest I come to such fast food fare is when I stop off at a Subway if I have to eat on the run because I have some sort of news-related assignment somewhere.

I developed my taste for the “spicy Italian” sandwich back when I learned to make them with 10 slices of genoa salami and 12 slices of pepperoni per foot-long sandwich while raking in the big bucks that went along with the free sandwich I was permitted to make myself each shift I worked.

  -30-

What will we do without Shakman?

From Richard J. Daley ...

I became aware of City Hall as a little kid (Who could possibly ignore the persona of Richard J. Daley? Whom I saw live once when they dedicated the then-brand new Sears Tower), but started paying attention to the details (Jane Byrne moving into the Cabrini Green public housing complex) back when I was in high school.

I had a summer stint on a government payroll (the other side of the building, in county government) while in college during the Harold Washington era, and wrote my first stories about city government back when the name “Eugene Sawyer” (not the son) was relevant.

... through the Jane Byrne era, ...

OF COURSE, IT means I saw the whole era of Richard M. Daley in detail, and see the concept of Rahm Emanuel in its true context – a piece of an overall story, rather than an epic in and of itself.

Through all this, there has been one constant – city government officials have had to deal with (and I’m sure they thought it was an ordeal) the Shakman Decree.

As in the federal court order that has lasted through the decades that provides for outside oversight to ensure that the old ways of City Hall hiring people for political reasons withered away.

It was a 1969 lawsuit that resulted three years later in the court order that came to be known by the name of the attorney – Michael Shakman – who led the effort to try to make government hiring more honest and open.

... running through H.W., to ...

FROM MY PERSPECTIVE (and those of many other political observers), Shakman (the ruling) has been around for so long that it just seems like a part of the atmosphere around “the Hall.”

It seems hard to believe that soon, Shakman will be a bit of history. And maybe the day will come when people will wonder how we could have ever needed such oversight of the way government picked people for jobs?

... Eugene Sawyer; through the ...

It is such a regular part of the way things go that I’m still trying to comprehend how government will operate without it. Or, that the oversight for city government will now be merely the Inspector General’s office – just like many other government entities.

But it is reality.

... 'second coming' of Daley, ...

LAST WEEK, A federal judge started the clock on a 30-day period of review in which, if it works out the way things are expected, the Shakman decree will be allowed to lapse for city government.

Because the city was found to be “in substantial compliance” with the concept that people should be hired to work for city government because they are qualified for the job – and not because they knew somebody.

We should be pleased that our city government has reached such a level. It means that, despite all the rants we hear from certain elements of our society about how rotten and corrupt the officials are, it basically works. Besides, those people are mostly upset because government isn’t upholding their ideological hang-ups.

... to the modern-era of Rahm, ...

What I found interesting about last week’s actions was that officials acknowledged that “substantial compliance” isn’t the same as “perfect compliance.”

IT IS THE notion that there invariably will be something that violates the sensibilities of the goo-goos. That you can’t completely get away from political people hiring those they feel they can trust – particularly since we don’t seem to get offended when other companies hire people for similar reasons.

... Michael Shakman was THE constant

Check out the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday, which reported how one-time Cook County Board President Todd Stroger was hired by 21^st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins on a string of monthly contracts.

He may not be on the city payroll proper, but he’s getting city funds to basically serve as an advisor to Brookins. Who probably figures that the day will come when someone will allow him to hang around “the Hall” with a similar contract? But this is the exception; or so we’re told.

It took 45 years for the need for “Shakman” to wither away. The real test of how honest our city government has become will be how long we can go before a federal judge decides it needs to be resurrected.

  -30-

How minimal is minimum (when it comes to wages across the state of Ill.)?

It has been awhile since I have had to work a job that paid minimum wage – so long that I recall being paid $3.25 an hour.

RAUNER: $7.25?

In fact, I suspect most people don’t give much thought to the issue; unless they happen to be in circumstances under which that is all anyone wants to pay them – and those employers go out of their way to complain that even that amount of money is too much.

SO I’M GUESSING it’s going to be a bit of a shock to many people as this election cycle we’re now in will force them to give a thought to just how little someone can be paid for their work.

Currently, employers in Illinois are required to pay their hourly workers no less than $8.25 per hour (which I would have thought of as a fortune back when I was 16 and didn’t know any better).

Gov. Pat Quinn is on the record as supporting an increase of the state minimum wage to $10 per hour. While voters in Chicago will be asked to vote on a referendum question as to whether the minimum wage ought to be boosted to $15 per hour.

Which is the rate that many of those organized labor protests outside of fast food franchise restaurants are demanding. I can recall when I was in junior high school, one of my fellow students felt the need to boast that her father had a $15 hourly salary – which was meant to sound impressive.

THEN AGAIN, $15 an hour doesn’t buy as much as it did a third of a century ago.

On the Republican side of the electoral equation, most of the candidates for governor are trying to avoid saying anything about the issue. Why tick off poor people who can vote (even though I suspect some GOP types wish that somehow the vote could be taken from them)?

QUINN: $10?

Except for Bruce Rauner, the wealthy venture capitalist and friend of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He used a candidate forum in the Quad Cities to say he wants to drop the state’s minimum wage, although in recent days he's tried to back track by saying he merely wants to study the issue.

A reduction is possible because the U.S. government has a $7.25 per hour minimum wage that applies across the nation, unless individual states wish to go higher. Illinois does. Indiana – for example – does not, which translates even at higher pay scales into the idea among Indiana residents that they have to come work in Illinois to make real money.

RAUNER SPEWS RHETORIC about wanting Illinois to be “competitive” with other states, implying that companies will want to locate elsewhere because they can save a buck (literally) on labor costs.

CHICAGO VOTERS: $15???

Actually, it just shows him taking sides, and it certainly isn’t with organized labor. This will be yet another reason why some of the unions in this state will decide to put their campaign cash into supporting anybody BUT Bruce.

Of course, some of the national organizations are choosing to give their cash to Quinn instead of a Republican primary campaign that they probably wouldn’t support in the November general election.

There are going to be a lot of choices for people who wouldn’t otherwise bother to even think about the issue. It will be curious to see who winds up prevailing, and how much of a statement it winds up making about the value of labor in Illinois.

AS FOR RAUNER, his attitude on this issue and other related questions winds up coming across as someone who doesn’t value the labor that does the work that enables companies to succeed.

It makes him seem like someone who wants to blame his employees for the fact that his profit margin isn’t higher. He’d better not be surprised when such an attitude winds up costing him votes come the March 18 primary.

  -30-

How important is your employment? Did you bear the brunt of the cold?

I was among the masses Monday, or so it seems. I got to work from home because of the frigid weather.


Frosty view of the neighborhood

I didn’t venture any farther than half-a-block from my humble abode, and even that was just for a few minutes so I could take a few photographs to document the conditions – which are hard to illustrate since the snowfall is past and the story of the day on Monday was the temperature that you felt – not saw!

NOW I DO some work for a daily newspaper. Although it turned out that all of the assignments I thought I was going to chase were for events that wound up being cancelled due to the cold.

I spent a significant chunk of my day working the telephone and talking to an assortment of police and fire officials, Public Works crews and various elected officials to figure out how people were reacting.

The consensus seems to be that people were so thoroughly warned about the weather that they were prepared. And in many cases, they didn’t even bother to go to work.

Which means most of those who were working were literally those police officers and firefighters who HAD to be on hand in the event of an emergency. That, and the Public Works crews who were on call throughout the weekend in order to keep streets passable.

ALTHOUGH THOSE WHO got a glimpse of the part of the Chicago area that lies on the other side of the Illinois-Indiana border got to see images of impassable roads, and word that the commuter trains to the Loop didn’t run at all.

Some of us worked Monday, and some of us didn’t.

My snow-encrusted car that didn't run properly before

Technically, I did some work. Although I was fortunate to be able to do it from within the confines of my humble abode.

As opposed to my brother, Chris, who works at a Home Depot store and wound up having to put in an eight-hour shift as the store was open for business.

 

Neighbors won't picnic anytime soon

I’D LIKE TO think that people interested in a home remodeling project could have put it off.

I wonder how much of the business was from people who didn’t think ahead of time and suddenly found themselves in need of a specific tool in order to make an emergency repair that otherwise would have caused their lives to be unbearable.

And for what it's worth, my brother did wind up having to spent part of his working day outdoors. "It's cold as (a certain municipality in Michigan that some also equate with eternal damnation) out here," is what he told me when I spoke to him briefly in mid-day.

Somebody lost a glove!

Although I do know he has said in the past that the store itself is kept so warm (even in the summer months) that he can build up a sweat in winter-time when he works indoors.

MY SYMPATHIES GO out to those who got stuck having to work outside, and where no amount of tuques, face masks, heavy mittens or gloves, along with layers of sweatshirts underneath a down jacket will keep them warm.

Particularly if their employment duties aren’t so much to keep us safe as to keep some chain corporation’s financial bottom line up to a certain level deemed necessary for a CEO somewhere to have an adequate profit WITHOUT having to lay off more people.

Yes, the chill of an Arctic-type winter (supposedly, the wind chill factor made Monday feel like a 45-below day) has put me in a sarcastic mood. I’d probably be even worse if I had actually had to deal with a chill in my fingers as I tried to take notes of the sayings of our U.S. senators – who were supposed to gather in the Pullman neighborhood to breathe life into now-former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s desire to turn the one-time railcar factory and surrounding neighborhood into a national park.

Envision the hazards when those icicles start falling

 

But they cancelled (as did a few other assignments), and I got to stay indoors (and yes, I literally am wearing a particularly comfortable pair of pajamas as I write this commentary).

MY SYMPATHIES EXTEND to those who had to work regardless of the weather conditions.

Except for, perhaps, the U.S. Postal Service worker who was supposed to make the trip to my residence on Monday. As far as I can tell, he never showed up -- despite all the rhetoric about "Neither snow nor rain nor heat" keeping postal workers "from their appointed rounds."

Which was an issue for me, since there literally was supposed to be a "check in the mail" that I hoped to get Monday.

  -30-

Boasting about business? Is Quinn desperate for an accomplishment?

I realize that government officials like to be able to claim they’re bringing business interests to within their boundaries.

Now a part of Chicago economy

It’s a boost for the economy, creates some jobs that can be held by local people and also makes it look like the officials actually got off their collective duffs and did something to earn their share of the taxpayer money that covers their salaries.

YET I COULDN’T help but be amused by the lengthy statement issued by Gov. Pat Quinn on Thursday that took great pride in the fact that Mike’s Hard Lemonade Co. is now a Chicago-based business.

The company is developing a corporate headquarters just west of the Loop. Some 80 people will be employed there. Although as Crain's Chicago Business reported Thursday, the move actually occurred in April 2012.

Now, every time that someone decides to imbibe themselves with that particular substance, they will be doing their part to bolster the economies of both Chicago and Illinois. While also laughing at us for how ridiculous of an extreme our officials will go to in order to boast about a business accomplishment!

Because getting all worked up over Mike's strikes me as being the equivalent of when a suburban municipality gets all worked up over having a chain ice cream stand or some other fast food franchise develop a location within their boundaries. Or maybe when they get a new gasoline station.

I’M NOT SAYING Mike’s Hard Lemonade should go away. It just strikes me as something miniscule to get all worked up over. Having 80 new jobs in Chicago isn’t going to be the key to revitalizing the local economy.

It strikes me more as a statement made by a governor whose getting tired of hearing all kinds of cheap rhetoric from surrounding states about encouraging businesses to leave Illinois and locate in their boundaries – usually because they charge lesser tax rates.

Although the truth usually comes down to a business gets what it pays for. And many of those surrounding states don’t offer as much in perks or services as Illinois offers.



QUINN: Needs something to brag about

Which is why the lower rates are essential for anyone to consider locating in those spots.

NOW I’M NOT interested in turning this commentary into a regional spat of Illinois vs. Indiana or Iowa or Missouri or Wisconsin or anywhere else.

I just find it odd the way this attitude makes our officials feel compelled to overhype every little move. How else to explain the Quinn statement, “The presence of a dynamic company like Mike’s is the kind of business Illinois needs to advance our vision of becoming one of the most exciting and vibrant business corridors in the nation.”

This is the kind of hyperbole I would expect if Illinois were to attract a business like Boeing within our boundaries. Which we did many years ago – the corporate offices for the airplane manufacturer are in the Second City.

But the business climate has changed since that move occurred about a decade ago.

WHICH IS WHY we now get all excited at the thought of Mike’s Hard Lemonade locating in Illinois! Woo hoo!!!!

I hope this commentary doesn’t come across as a Mike’s bashing session. It isn’t. I’m not a regular consumer of their product. But I don’t have anything against people who do drink it.

It’s just that I’d like to think our public officials are thinking on a bigger scale.

While I realize it is possible to snatch a small business here and there and have them add up to something significant, it also is hard to keep up such a pace. Even though Illinois claims to have added 244,300 private sector jobs since 2010.

IT’S NOT LIKE Anheuser-Busch suddenly became tired of being located in St. Louis and decided to shift their operations to a South Side-based brewery, or anything like that.

It would be nicer if we didn’t have a governor so desperate (just like a Chicago Cubs fan often does, in fact) to tout miniscule achievements on this issue.

  -30-

Gee, she produced trivial, meaningless content that’s now on the Internet. Is that really a fire-able offense?

Let me state up front that I do not know Susannah Collins. I have never met her, and for all I know I never will.

COLLINS: Looking for work

And since I don’t pay much attention to professional hockey, I have to confess that I never saw the now-former Comcast SportsNet Chicago reporter-type person at work.

AT LEAST NOT until she had the on-air flub earlier this week (letting the word “sex” instead of “success” slip into her report) that caused people to start paying more attention to her; thereby digging up her work from past broadcast jobs that showed a body of work that was downright trivial.

Some might even call it stupid.

So stupid that the Comcast sports people felt compelled to let her go from her current job – which strikes me as being hypocritical. Because I suspect the “content” that some are now claiming to push the boundaries of sports journalism and good taste (that’s how the Chicago Tribune phrased it) was completely in line with what her former employers expected.

And which is oh so similar to much of what appears on so many Internet sites – the ones that supposedly are providing people what they’re really interested in and why newspapers and other organizations (the alleged “legacy media” that some like to dump on every chance they get) are supposedly on our way out of business.

FOR THE RECORD, Collins used to work for an entity called Middlebrow Media, and was co-host (with another attractive female) of a program called SportzNuts – some of which still exists in video clips posted on YouTube.

As far as I can tell, she did a lot of interviews with “fans” that devolved into double entendres, although the Tribune dug up the video of a parody of a dramatic reading of the sex stories included in former pro basketball player Darryl Dawkin’s ghost-written biography “Chocolate Thunder.”

Quite frankly, I just can’t get outraged – except at the thought of Comcast SportsNet Chicago now thinking it can play all high and mighty and claim it is shocked, shocked to learn that trivialities and nonsense were uttered during a broadcast report.

I have just seen and heard way too much non-news committed by people who want to think they’re journalists to think there’s anything at all unique about this!

HECK, THE SAME kind of people who thought it was so titillating to hear Collins say “sex” instead of “success” that the Comcast video went “viral” are the same types who motivate alleged news outlets to produce the trivialities that Collins (and many others) are producing.

If that is what some people want to fill their minds with, it may well be their choice. Just don’t expect me (or anyone else with sense) to take them seriously.

Because I’m sure these are the individuals who think there’s something legitimate about that study last month by CareerCast.com that claims being a newspaper reporter is the “worst job” in the United States.

Although the report that got to me was one published by Yahoo! That pointed out five “dying” careers – and labeled “reporters” (all, not just newspaper types) who ought to look into an alternative career of “public relations specialist.”

WHAT ABOUT THE fact that if reporters really do die off as an occupation there wouldn’t be any need for corporate types to hire PR spokesmen to deal with reporters? I suspect the kind of people who think that the stuff Collins was doing was fully legitimate are the ones who think there is something logical about this thought.

They’re probably the ones who think that the problem with “the media” all these years is that they have focused attention on “boring” stuff like “news!” They’re the ones who think that Collins’ work was legitimate, and are only dumping on her now even though she produced what her bosses wanted.

Which is why a part of me is hoping that Collins manages to become something other than the “sex reporter” from Chicago and manages to find work elsewhere, other than as someone's public relations spokeswoman.

Does the world really need another PR hack?

  -30-

Does “Sox Park” need a new name?

U.S. Cellular is destined to become that big, bulky building where the Chicago White Sox play, rather than an actual business entity with a strong Chicago presence.

Will the name atop the scoreboard change  soon?



For it seems that the company is cutting back its Chicago operations significantly. Crain’s Chicago Business used its website Wednesday to report that while the corporate headquarters will remain within our city limits, there won’t be much else here.

THE COMPANY IS selling off its customers in several markets, including Chicago, to Sprint Nextel Corp. About 980 jobs will be cut, including 640 in the Chicago area.

Which makes me wonder how the White Sox feel at this moment – knowing they’re playing in a stadium that has been branded with the “U.S. Cellular” name. Because the Chicago Tribune reported that the name is going to remain in place, for the time being.

Now I comprehend in an intellectual sense how it doesn’t matter that the stadium is named for a company that is cutting back its local presence (not that I ever used U.S. Cellular to subscribe for cellphone service).

But it could be a matter of perception, and one in which the name becomes one of those unfortunate labels that people wish could go away.

WHAT AMUSES ME is that I remember back to 2003 when U.S. Cellular paid many millions of dollars for the rights to put their corporate identity on the building then known as New Comiskey Park.

That money was used by White Sox and state Sports Facilities Authority officials to pay for various cosmetic changes to the building that supposedly gave it more character than it had when it originally opened for the 1991 season.

Of course, it gave the building a rather “blah” kind of name. Then again, “U.S. Cellular Field” is less awkward than many of the corporate names that adorn sports stadiums these days.

It also helps that the White Sox situation hasn’t deteriorated to the point where the building name seems to change every couple of seasons. We’ve had a decade’s worth of games at U.S. Cellular Field (a.k.a., the Cell). It has kind of become a part of the ballclub’s character.

AND NOW THAT character is going to be associated with a company that isn’t interested in picking up any more business in Chicago, and is going to wind up laying off some local residents.

How many White Sox fans are going to feel a touch of repulsion at the thought of going to ballgames at a building named for the company they no longer work for? If only they could ensure that the layoffs were restricted solely to employees who root for the Chicago Cubs.

They could go chew Wrigley-brand gum while filling out forms at the state Employment Security department to collect unemployment benefits.

Nah! I don’t really mean that. Because I can’t really joke in a convincing manner about the idea of people being put out of work – particularly when the reason for making the layoffs is a corporate interest wishing to make its bottom line just a tad bit better.

BUT BACK TO the stadium identity.

While I can’t stand the idea of stadiums whose names change every few seasons (I still think of it as “Enron Field” in Houston – even though that name is ancient history, buried beyond several subsequent names), maybe it’s time for a new name for the building at 35^th Street and Shields Avenue.

I always thought the “Comiskey Park” name should have been retired with the old building that was torn down following the 1990 season. So I don’t want that one brought back.

Yet a part of me wonders if we ought to make official the long-time informal reference to the stadiums. I recall as a kid many people who would say the Cubs played at “Cubs Park” and the White Sox at “Sox Park.”

MAYBE IT’S TIME to put that moniker on the marquee of the current stadium. Make it official.

White Sox Park. Or maybe, because of the building’s scale, White Sox Stadium. It has a nice “ring” to it.

  -30-

We shouldn’t be surprised that Sears closes stores after getting tax break

There are many people these days who are outraged with Sears, using the Internet to vent their rage at the fact that the retailer had the gall to demand a serious tax break from the Illinois General Assembly, then announce that it plans to close stores across the country.

Personally, I can’t get upset – largely because it is exactly the kind of conduct I would have expected. I’m dismayed that conditions are like this, but not the least bit surprised that it could happen like this.

BESIDES, IT ISN’T like any agreement was violated. The actions that happened this month are completely within the “letter of the law.” If anything, Sears’ behavior is perfect evidence of the fact that not every bad thing that happens is illegal.

So let’s look at what happened with Sears, which used its political clout to pressure the Illinois Legislature and Gov. Pat Quinn to back a measure giving the corporation some serious tax breaks.

At a time when Illinois government is looking for every bit of income it can get its hands on, the idea that it would be willing to “give back” some money is a significant act on its part.

But Sears Holding Corp. used political blackmail, so to speak, to get what it wanted. They threatened to leave their northwest suburban corporate headquarters and relocate to some other state (possibly North Carolina, in Charlotte) if they weren’t given financial incentives to stay.

ILLINOIS GOVERNMENT, NOT wanting the national “black eye” of having a company with such history leaving our boundaries, gave in. They got their tax breaks, although it took the General Assembly several tries to get it done.

And some legislators prefer to think that they voted to grant some tax relief to low-income people. Although anyone who is being honest admits that no one would have cared about the low-income people if not for the need to address Sears.

But this week, saying that the Christmas holiday season was nowhere near as good financially as they would have wanted, Sears said that about 120 stores across the country will have to be shuttered. On Thursday, they went so far as to identify 79 locations – with the implication being that another 40 or so yet-to-be-identified stores will also be closed in the near future.

Now this deal doesn’t, in any way, affect the fact that the corporate headquarters will continue to be in Hoffman Estates – which was the only condition of the tax break.

NOBODY EVER PROMISED that all the stores would stay open. So nothing legally improper (a.k.a., criminal) has occurred.

I’m sure the fact that no Sears stores (or their sister K-mart stores) in Illinois are being closed is solely because no one wants to tick off the political people here. But when a little more time passes, there could well be Illinois-based Sears stores that get closed.

In fact, the only Chicago-area store affected by this week’s announced round of closings is a K-mart in St. John, Ind.

That store at the far southeast corner of the Chicago metropolitan area likely is cost some jobs and some will be hurt. But it is on the other side of State Line Road. I’m sure that Sears officials are justifying this one local closing by thinking to themselves, “What has Indiana done for us lately?”

WHICH MAY NOT be an illegal viewpoint for them to have. But it is one that bothers me that we have to accept it as just the way things are done.

It is the reason why I have my problems with the ideologues of our society who like to rant that our governments in Illinois and Chicago are anti-business. We supposedly tax so excessively that no reputable business would want to locate within our area.

Ignoring the fact that access to the Chicago-area, with all its perks and joys, is something of significant value to a business in-and-of itself.

The kind of people who want to think they’re being “pro-business” are really just too eager to give in to the corporate whims that would just as soon believe they should not have to pay any kind of tax.

ALL-TOO-OFTEN, THEY’RE THE same entities that rant about how profitable they could be – if only they didn’t have to pay such ridiculously-high wages to their employees. As though they’d have any kind of product or service to sell for profit if NOT for their employees.

Which means the next time I hear that someone is complaining about how “anti-business” Illinois and Chicago are, I’m going to wonder if they’re the kind of person who thinks it is somehow proper that Sears would whack away at stores and jobs just a couple of weeks after getting a significant business break from state government.

The fact that anyone could think this is acceptable is what I find offensive – much more than the business’ act itself.

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Need a job? Try the Cubs

Want to work at the "humble abode" of one Elwood J. Blues (at least the state police thought so)? The Cubs need a new public address announcer, and are willing to take applications via YouTube and the Internet.

In some regards, it is good publicity for the Chicago Cubs. In a season that is threatening to look mediocre at best, the city’s National League ballclub managed to find a way to get people to talk about them in a less-than-negative manner.

The team actually needs a new public address announcer for the 81 games they will play this season at Wrigley Field, and also to make some public appearances about town on behalf of causes supported by the Cubs.

NOW IN ALL likelihood, the person who ultimately gets the job will be someone who has handled such duties for another professional sports team or large collegiate athletic program.

But in feeding the fantasies that anybody out there could have a chance to be associated with a Major League (in name only) sports franchise, the Cubs actually went ahead and put a classified advertisement on that job-search website, CareerBuilder.com.

Go to CareerBuilder and one can find the job description, a form to be filled out, along with instructions for the video one must make of themselves reading from a script, so that the team can hear what kind of voice they’re getting.

I’m sure they don’t expect to hear anything approaching the “gold” standard of PA voices – that of the late Bob Sheppard from Yankee Stadium in New York. Or their own "immortal," Pat Pieper, who handled announcing at Wrigley even before it was called Wrigley -- doing Cubs games from 1916 through 1974. But they don’t want to inadvertently hire someone reminiscent of Roseanne Barr doing the “Star Spangled Banner” prior to a Padres game in San Diego.

NOW FOR THOSE of you White Sox fans who think you can submit an application and take pot-shots at los Cachoros, forget it. The ballclub provides the script to be read from. You’re expected to say not uncomplimentary things about Starlin Castro and Carlos Marmol, while also giving a plug to CareerBuilder.com.

Which, if I recall properly, is a Tribune Co. property, just like the Cubs still are (the media company kept a minority interest in the ballclub when they sold them to the Ricketts family, AND it is Tribune broadcast properties that still use the Cubs as a major drawing card to their radio and television stations).

So that makes all of this a gimmick to get baseball fans who think that a job associated with a ballclub is an excuse to get paid while sitting around watching baseball, AND drinking a few free beers.

I doubt that very much. Although I’m sure the Cubs would rather have people think those thoughts, rather than focusing too much cranial power on whether or not Carlos Zambrano’s attitude overcomes any ability he may have as a pitcher.

INSOFAR AS AN announcer’s job is concerned, people don’t take into account the fact that 81 games in a six-month period means there will be significant time periods in one’s life when they will be unable to do anything else. In short, they won’t have much of a life – unless they think they can do a sloppy job and still get hired.

But if one can get hired, it can make for the potential of becoming a mini-celebrity of sorts about town. Nobody will know your face. But your voice will stand out, and the name will get filed away for that eventual moment when your body gives out.

I’d say there is an excellent chance that when Paul Friedman (who held the Wrigley Field PA job for the past 16 seasons) passes on, his obituary will identify him for that role, rather than anything else he may accomplish during the significant portion of life I’m sure he still has left in him.

Personally, I couldn’t even think of sending in an application as a parody (such as the moment I submitted my own name to the state’s Democratic Party to be considered for lieutenant governor nominee). My voice is a little too rough and wouldn’t be able to take the strain of so many hours of speaking.

IT REALLY HAS nothing to do with the fact that I have no use for the Cubs or the National League, EXCEPT to see which team it puts up to lose to the American League champion in the World Series (I still think last year was a fluke!).

So I’ll wish all you Cubs fans the best who want to fantasize about getting the job. Send in your applications. You have until Monday to put your audition video on YouTube, and submit your application. I fully expect the person who gets the job will be someone with a traditional resume, meaning they’ve worked in a stadium of some size and are used to being around ball players (who from my experience live in their own world with concerns most of us never fathom in the real world).

I also know that whoever does wind up getting the job will become the second-best PA announcer in Chicago.

For I doubt that anybody who turns up on CareerBuilder.com is going to be able to top Gene Honda – the voice of the BlackHawks and DePaul men’s basketball, when he’s not doing White Sox baseball.

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