Pro-union Groups Join Forces against Wal-Mart - Update
Wal-Mart Watch, a group which says it is running a “public education” campaign about alleged poor business practices of discount retailer Wal-Mart, has joined forces with a similar United Food and Commercial Workers (
UFCW)-sponsored campaign called
Wal-Mart Workers for Change. According to the UFCW and the Service Employees International Union (
SEIU), the two groups will now form a single organization.
The expanded organization, called Wal-Mart Workers for Change, says it has hundreds of thousands of activists. In May 2009, Wal-Mart Workers for Change said
thousands of workers in 100 Wal-Mart stores across 15 different U.S. states have signed union representation cards. The campaign also released an
online documentary alleging anti-union tactics by Wal-Mart management.
According to the UFCW, efforts to unionize Wal-Mart store employees in the Washington, D.C. area are gaining momentum. The UFCW and affiliated groups have been stepping up union organization activities in the U.S. and Canada since a Canadian Wal-Mart discount store location in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec was reported to
have 180 employees working under UFCW representation earlier this year.
In
June 2009, the UFCW said Walmart employees are trying to organize unions throughout the Washington, D.C., area and across the U.S. UFCW local unions are working to assist them and protect them from what the union calls "unlawful management retaliation." The UFCW says Wal-Mart pays its store employees low wages and prices health benefits out of their reach. A June press release quotes President Barack Obama and Maryland State Sen. Paul G. Pinsky (D-22nd) as expressing support for Wal-Mart store employees unionizing. Wal-Mart workers in the D.C. area distributed handbills promoting unionization as part of the effort.
However, Wal-Mart has had success this year in preventing North American stores from unionizing. In June 2009, Wal-Mart reversed a December 2008
union certification at a store in Saskatchewan, Canada. According to Supermarket News, a Canadian court overturned UFCW certification granted to workers at a Wal-Mart location in Weybern, Saskatchewan. A judge in Regina, Saskatchewan overturned the certification because workers at the store voted to unionize in a public card-signing process and Canadian law has mandated union certification by secret ballot since May 2009.
Last October,
Wal-Mart closed a tire and lube shop in the suburbs of the Canadian capital of Ottawa, ON. Wal-Mart claimed that the six workers were operating under an “unrealistic” contract and pushed up operating costs of the shop, which was annexed to a larger Wal-Mart store, by more than 30%. Wal-Mart transferred the six employees to other, non-unionized locations. In 2005, Wal-Mart closed a store in Quebec when 200 employees there attempted to unionize.
Wal-Mart Workers for Change says it has been “emboldened” by the election of President Barack Obama and the introduction of the
Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in Congress. Known as the "Card Check" bill, EFCA would eliminate requirements that union votes be conducted by secret ballot under supervision of the National Labor Relations Board. The major retail trade associations NRF and RILA, who
plan to merge later this year, have
publicly opposed passage of the bill.
Wal-Mart, which has agreed to allow unionization at some stores in China, has previously been accused of taking steps against union activity in the U.S., where no employee unions currently operate in any Wal-Mart stores. According to the Huffington Post, in 2000,
workers in the meat department of a Wal-Mart store in Jacksonville, TX voted to join the UFCW and became Wal-Mart’s first unionized American employees. Wal-Mart eliminated its meat-cutting operations in Jacksonville and 180 other locations, replacing them with prepackaged meat. The retailer denied the move had any connection to the union vote. After eight years of various court cases and appeals, Wal-Mart was found to have engaged in unfair labor practices, but the meat-cutters were found to not meet the legal requirements for collective bargaining. Wal-Mart also reached out-of-court settlements with several of the laid off unionized employees.
According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008, 14.98 million Americans worked as wage and salary workers in the retail trade industry. Of these retail workers, 782,000, or 5.2%, were members of a union, and 881,000, or 5.9%, were represented by a union. In 2007, 5.3% of retail workers were union members and 5.7% had union representation.
