A tale of two companies: Bill's Amazon-Walmart contradiction

A tale of two companies: Bill's Amazon-Walmart contradiction A tale of two companies: Bill's Amazon-Walmart contradiction Editorials NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, September 18, 2017, 4:10 AM facebook Tweet email Discounts welcome (LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images) Editorials NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, September 18, 2017, 4:10 AM Seattle’s Amazon is on the hunt for a second home — a big North American city with the tech talent and transit and quality of life and real estate to sustain 50,000 jobs and a $5 billion investment by the web commerce and tech behemoth. Mayor de Blasio hopes to make New York the chosen one, as damn right it should be. City over 1 million? Check. A stable business environment? We’ve got that and then some, with proven appeal for tech talent and minting more in top engineering institutes like Cornell Tech and NYU’s Tandon School. An international airport with direct flights to Seattle, San Francisco and D.C.? Heck, take two, currently under renovation. Real estate? Okay, 8 million square feet is a lot, but with new zoning rules, the sky’s the limit for the east side of Midtown Manhattan, and both Hudson Yards and the World Trade Center still have sites on the drawing boards. We’re sold — and surprised that de Blasio is. As public advocate, he went to the barricades to block another retail giant, Walmart, from setting up shop in New York City, calling it a killer of jobs at mom-and-pop neighborhood stores that failed to do right by its workers. “They come in, they undercut the competition on purpose,” he told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto in 2011, as Walmart prepared to open an outlet in economically challenged East New York, Brooklyn. “They lay waste to the mom-and-pop stores around them. That does change a community forever.” As mayor, he reiterated the point: “I don’t think it is a state secret that I am very uncomfortable with Walmart.” Now here comes Amazon, as big a threat to mom-and-pops, if that’s your barometer, as Walmart ever was. Accounting now for 43% of online sales, Amazon is snatching dollars consumers used to spend at brick-and-mortar bookstores, drug stores, hardware stores, you name it. Its acquisition of Whole Foods, a non-union supermarket, devours business from New York City’s union grocers — and pushes down Whole Foods prices, to boot. Amazon’s newly announced $100 million Staten Island shipping center, recipient of $18 million in state subsidies, will put robots to work alongside 2,250 humans. Thank God for the jobs, but de Blasio is fooling himself if he thinks they’re on a dramatically different wage-and-benefit plane than Walmart’s. (Amazon warehouse associate jobs in New Jersey pay $13.50 an hour; a Walmart customer service manager makes about the same.) Driving that explosive growth will be the high-paid, highly educated tech talent Amazon plans to park in the city to be chosen next year — jobs New York City will be lucky to have. Good thing de Blasio recognizes the brilliant Amazon opportunity, warts and all. Also too bad that low-income city shoppers who could have used a Walmart price break never got the chance. Send a Letter to the Editor Join the Conversation: facebook Tweet Get Daily News stories, delivered to your inbox. Sign Up Follow Us Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest YouTube Support Subscribe Contact Us Terms of Service Privacy Policy Keep in Touch Newsletter Apps Subscribe Feeds Support & Contact Contact Us Careers Site Map Terms of Use Ad Choices Terms of Service Privacy Policy Advertising Media Kit Place An Ad Special SectionsContests Daily News Covers Copyright 2017 NYDailyNews.com. All rights reserved.