Huffington Post: Wal-Mart's Anti-Union Threats Lead to Backlash, Call for Federal Probe

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/wal-marts-anti-union-thre_b_117409.html

Posted August 7, 2008 | 01:16 AM (EST)

Wal-Mart may have inadvertently done workers a big favor with its threats that a Democratic victory in November could lead to passage of a new law making organizing unions easier. Now progressive media and cable shows are giving the right to unionize greater attention, and a petition drive has been launched by pro-union groups asking the Federal Election Commission to investigate Wal-Mart for illegal electioneering ( a charge the company denies.)

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the company held mandatory meetings for supervisors and store managers warning that a Democratic and Obama victory could lead to passage of an Employee Free Choice Act; the company claimed the law could cost workers their jobs and lead to heavy union dues.

In fact, Wal-Mart is the poster child for union-busting and its own abuses perfectly illustrate why the law is so desperately needed. Wal-Mart's behavior reflects a broader corporate hostility to unions that's helping to drag down workers' earnings and health care benefits, as I discovered when I wrote last year about going undercover to a union-busting seminar. And As Michael Whitney of American Rights at Work observed on Firedog Lake:

Unfortunately for Wal-Mart workers, this kind of intimidation is nothing new. It's actually part and parcel for Wal-Mart's business plan. When Wal-Mart employees stand up for themselves and try to form a union, they face threats, propaganda, discrimination, intimidation, and even firings in retaliation.


What Wal-Mart is doing for November's political elections is what it, and hundreds of other anti-union companies, do all the time when workers say they want a union: initimidating them to go against their own self-interests.



Wal-Mart's concerns about a pro-union Democratic victory are echoed by other companies seeking to oppose any legislation or initiative that might conceivably help workers. The Hill reported this week:

Business leaders say a Democratic sweep of the presidency and key Senate contests this fall could lead to major changes in U.S. labor law.


Business has viewed the Senate as a bulwark to bills backed by the AFL-CIO and other labor groups since Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Measures making it easier to form unions and strengthening the rights of workers to sue for discriminatory pay practices have passed the House. But they have not been able to win the votes necessary to move forward in the Senate.

FULL story at link.

[Skink]

1. Unionizing Walmart could usher in the second great US middle class.

Walmart isn't going under any time soon and other other retailers that have enough to stay in business even in this climate would have to follow suit. We already gave away most of our unions. I'm not looking for Unions that pay what Detroit had to pay but with Government health care retailers could afford to pay a liveable wage and maybe give seniority to their workers, a concept that is lost to the revolving door of todays workforce.