Daley's veto of Chicago Big Box ordinance

In Chicago, a huge initiative to pass legislation requiring Big Box retailers like WalMart to pay a living wage with benefits to all employees has failed, at least for the time being. The city council passed the measure, but mayor Richard Daley vetoed it, and last week his veto was upheld.

Chicago Tribune story

In reading some reader opinions on the Tribune page I saw folks falling into two camps.

1. All efforts to garantee equitable compensation need to be made: social pressure, boycotts, and yes, LAW. (Quite interestingly, several labor unions were involved on this side of the argument, which stands out to me. When labor standards are enacted and enforced by law and not contract, that can take the steam out of movements to organize labor, ironically enough. The fact that the unions were on the side of the ordinance passing speaks to me of their integrity and authentic commitment to working people.)
2. Fair wages are a good thing, but it's just too dangerous to have a municiple government regulating what the private sector has to pay its workers.

My question is: What exactly is a government for, if not the protection of members of its society from abuse and exploitation?

On the national level, all of our current administration's rhetoric around foreign policy boils down to the thesis that they are in the business of protecting Americans. But on the domestic front, our national minimum wage is still set at $5.15, where it has been for the past nine years. Currently, a person working full-time at this rate would earn $10,712, which is more than 30% below the 2005 federal poverty line of $15,735 for a family of three. (check out stats on the Economic Policy Institute website.)

A common critique of the City of Chicago Big Box ordinance was that rogue municipalities shouldn't arbitrarily set standards which ought to be regulated at the national level. But the folks at the national level aren't doing anything for working people. 21 states and District of Columbia already have minimum wage laws that set a standard higher than the federal requirement.

If capitalism, the bottom line, the demands of stockholders, etc. dominate the minds of corporate managers and CEOs, what dominates their hearts? What has to occur in the spirit of a person that he/she would conclude that he/she has no obligation to pay his/her employees enough money to live on? At what point does a person look directly at the economic realities of US cost of living and say, in effect, "It's okay for us to pay you less than you need to survive?"