Huffington Post: Labor Law Could Learn a Lot from the NFL (about punishing Walmart)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-beth-maxwell/labor-law-could-learn-a-l_b_65215.html

Bill Belichick knows the cost of breaking the rules.

The coach of the New England Patriots was forced to cough up $500,000--about 12% of his annual salary--for spying on his opponents during the NFL's season opener. The league's punishment didn't stop there - the Patriots also had to pay a quarter-million dollar fine and give up at least one draft pick.

Discipline was swift and severe. All in all, the punishment was the NFL's biggest ever, and it surely sent a message to every team in the league.

The incident stands in stark contrast to another reported last week by the Las Vegas Sun involving Wal-Mart, the world's biggest employer.

The Bentonville behemoth was once again found guilty of unionbusting by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), this time in three Southern Nevada stores.

But whereas it took the NFL less than a week to punish the Patriots, it took the NLRB more than seven years to hand down its guilty verdict. To add insult to injury, Wal-Mart's punishment is pathetic: for breaking up its employees' organizing effort, the company had to pay just a few thousand dollars in lost wages to a former employee.

The laughable fine is a drop in the bucket for Wal-Mart, which posted profits of $11 billion in 2006.

FULL story at link.

[muntrv]

1. Hillary Clinton was on Wal-Mart's board of directors. How much would

they benefit from her presidency?