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Wal-Mart's Pattern of Contempt For Labor Laws Continues
Labor Board Issues 14th Major Complaint Since August, Accuses Retailer of Massive Lawbreaking in Alliance, Ohio, Store
Bentonville Directs Company's Effort to Stamp Out Workers' Desire for Union
ALLIANCE, OHIO, The outlines of Wal-Mart's corporate anti-worker strategy are becoming clearer with each complaint issued by the National Labor Relations Board, as the latest complaint issued Nov. 20 as a result of an organizing campaign by Wal-Mart workers to be represented by Local 880 of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union (UFCW).
"It is a pattern of contempt for this nation's labor laws that shows how low Wal-Mart will stoop to keep its workers from exercising their right to have a Union," said UFCW Executive Vice President Michael E. Leonard.
He explained that whenever Wal-Mart workers start talking about a Union, the Home Office in Bentonville, Arkansas, flies in a team of professional propagandists, along with a flood of district and regional company officials. The first step is a "velvet glove" meeting with the workers to unlawfully try to find out why they want a union. Then the Bentonville managers address those concerns in hopes this will show workers they don't need a Union to fix these problems.
If the "velvet-glove" approach is unsuccessful, management resorts to the "iron fist" and seeks to identify the "troublemakers" who were behind the Union talk, and either seek to bribe them with promises of promotions and pay raises or build a paper case of "violations" of company policies in order to terminate them.
The barebones of the anti-union strategy can be found in Wal-Mart's three basic anti-union manuals for "supervisors," which are available on-line at www.walmartyrs.org and www.walmartworkerslv.com
"Wal-Mart must respond to this type of union activity [signing cards to authorize an NLRB election] immediately in an effort to stop the card signing before the required 30% signatures have been obtained," says Wal-Mart's "Manager's Toolbox To Remaining Union Free," which is given to supervisors.
"This mentality gives rise to a company strategy of do-anything, break-any-law, promise-anyone-anything, but prevent an election at all costs," notes Leonard, the UFCW's chief strategist.
Leonard, who is the Union's director of strategic programs, believes Wal-Mart is willing to risk NLRB sanctions "because Wal-Mart knows that once workers get a fair, government-run, secret-ballot election, they would vote for Union representation, and that's the one thing Bentonville can't stomach."
"Wal-Mart even went so far earlier this week as to prevent an election in Las Vegas by committing some of the most egregious violations of federal labor law that the NLRB had to call off the scheduled election in a Sam's Club store," Leonard adds. "By the time the NLRB sorts everything out and gives Wal-Mart its, day in court', the company hopes the desire for Union representation will disappear."
"What's different this time from every other time Wal-Mart workers have sought out a Union to make their workplace better is that the UFCW is committed to sticking with the workers. The UFCW will cooperate fully with the NLRB's prosecution of their cases, and we will be there for the workers for as long as it takes," Leonard concludes.
"The NLRB isn't going to put up with Bentonville thumbing its nose at the law for very much longer."
In the Alliance store, the NLRB accused one of Wal-Mart's so-called "Labor Team," Carla Flinn, of "unlawfully promis[ing] to remedy an employee's grievances in order to discourage that employee from engaging in union activity." Another "Labor Team" member, Robert Crum, is accused of "unlawfully attempt[ing] to solicit grievances from employees and impliedly promis[ing] them better working conditions in order to discourage employees' union activity."
Wal-Mart also "unlawfully threatened employees with loss of benefits if they selected a union as their collective bargaining representative," and denied an employee her right to have a co-worker witness at a disciplinary interview. "Criminal suspects have their Miranda rights, but Wal-Mart workers are denied their right to a witness, which was recently upheld by the Court of Appeals," said Leonard.
After failing to respond for months to worker complaints, Wal-Mart suddenly made a host of changes in order to discourage support for the union. Among these changes were: installation of new equipment; a new security system; construction of a smoking lounge; removal of points from employee records for violations of an attendance system; and allowing cashiers to skip checks of the drivers' licenses of credit card customers if the checkout lines are too long.
The NLRB also found that the company illegally terminated one worker and disciplined another.
A trial on the charges was scheduled for 1 p.m. March 11, 2002, before an administrative law judge in the City Council Chambers in Canton, Ohio.
United Food and Commercial Workers Union: A Voice for Working America--www.ufcw.org
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