Wal-Mart Scaring Employees About Potential Democratic Win?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Economy, JobsThis is a pretty craven move even for a company who routinely sold products at a loss so they could drive local competition in rural communities out of business.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies — including Wal-Mart.In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.
According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.
The company claims this isn’t a coordinated effort to tell people not to vote for Obama, but let’s not be naive here. This is a company that thrives on questionable labor standards, including limiting a large percentage of their staff to only work 35 hours a week so they would be considered “part time” and couldn’t qualify for health benefits.
Also, numerous lawsuits have been filed (and won) where employees have been forced to work off the clock. And this is the world’s biggest retailer we’re talking about here. Think about that for a second.
The truth is, Wal-Mart is scared that their work force may actually get to have some say in the matter. I’m not claiming unions are perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and I think they can definitely be an impediment to economic progress, but too often in our nation’s history progress has come at the expense of people’s lives.
Wal-Mart has built their empire on the backs of hard working men and women, and if those people’s interests aren’t being accounted for by the corporation, well, maybe they’ll wise up and unionize, regardless of who the country elects as their President.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Economy, Jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:29 am
It is only “pretty craven” if one does not really care about employment levels and prices for durable and consumable goods for lower and middle class families.
I’m sure we will see equally harsh condemnations of such companies as Google that openly campaign for the Democratics and Obama.
Oh, but that is right…the people that work at Google are smart and drink your brand of latte and the people that work at Walmart are stupid, drink Folgers & Mountain Dew and need your protection.
Elitist.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:46 am
Obviously J. Harden is a troll and I’m the dummy to take the bait. God forbid we care about working americans. You talk about the cost of durable and consumable goods but what really is the cost? Firstly why do you need to buy so much shit? Walmarts food prices don’t blow away anyone elses food prices. Walmart sells tons of crappy goods that end up causing things like e-coli disease from eating VEGETABLES! WTF is that. This is the company you’re protecting so that you can continue to boost the Asian financial markets, kill employment opportunities in rural america and further the destruction of the environment.
As for Unions, well no they aren’t perfect but think about how few Unions exist in the US now. Look at your average non-union office worker. How many of them work less than 50 hours a week? Less than 60 hours a week? All so that you can loose your job FOR NO REASON “at-will employment”. Americans aren’t even in the top 20 for happiest people in the world, we have a continually dropping productivity rate and an ailing economy yet the wealthiest 1% are doing smashingly. Again, WTF?
August 1st, 2008 at 11:46 am
[...] and “civil” than my own: The Moderate Voice’s Joe Gandelman; Donklephant; Wake up [...]
August 1st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Regardless of Wal-Mart’s characterization of the mis-named Employee Free Choice Act, they’re being pretty truthful as to the potential end effects. Is telling the truth now reprehensible*? Is it somehow despicable for companies to disseminate accurate information to their employees on the potential effects of proposed legislation affecting their businesses? As near as I can tell, they’re not crossing any legal lines at all and are well within their speech rights.
There is NOTHING stopping WalMart employees from unionizing now under the current rules. The unions want to change the rules to make it easier to strong-arm employees into unionizing. They want to take a real-world bargaining option AWAY from the employees.
Having been a Teamster once upon a time myself and having been through several union organizing votes, my sympathies do not lie with the unions on this legislation. Some real-world background: Employees often use the threat of union organizing and a union vote to force concessions from their employer. Unions are annoyed that they so often fail to win these elections after the employer makes those concessions before the secret-ballot election is held. So they want to do away with the secret-ballot elections.
The only real reason for doing away with secret ballots in union organization votes is to enable the unions to coerce the voters. The union organization process may indeed be less than fair to workers, but the fix is not to open the workers to focused union strong-arm coercion and make it even LESS fair from the other direction, which is what the mis-named EFCA would do. The Act would reduce employee choice by taking away the employee option to use union organizing drives as bargaining tools without actually unionizing.
Note who loses power and options there–MOSTLY the employees and SOMEWHAT the employer. Note who gains power and options there–the unions. Heh. Follow the money.
(*–Um, maybe you better go check the definition of “craven.” I don’t think it means what you think it means, and I’m sure you can find many better adjectives that do.)
August 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
If we weren’t fighting this endless war in Iraq, we might have enough troops available to perform vital rescue missions for these hopeless men and women who are being forced to work part time at Wal-mart.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
@tully -
First, craven is exactly the word I meant to use. Wal-Mart is obviously scared and they’re acting in a very cowardly fashion to try and “educate” their lower educated workforce how damaging organizing could be for their rights. And they know that if American workers actually do start unionizing, its a whole new ball game.
Also, there is something stopping employees from organizing…it’s called Wal-Mart. You’re acting as if this company hasn’t made it a practice for years to bust up any and all attempts for their employees to organize. They’re notorious for this.
Meanwhile, in China, all Wal-Mart employees are in the unions and have used their power to negotiate double the % of income growth that the corporation has given statesiders.
As I stated in the post, I’m not advocating that unions are the greatest good or that they don’t have problems, but Wal-Mart has a long, documented (and litigious) history of doing the exact opposite of what’s right by workers. And this latest attempt to scare their employees into thinking that unions would do more to hurt them than help them is not only craven, it’s transparent.
@Josh –
Are you actually suggesting that people who work at Wal-Mart don’t need at least some assistance navigating their way through these issues? That they shouldn’t be given an opposing viewpoint to what a corporation is feeding them? Is that what you’re seriously advocating?
Because if so, who’s the elitist one again?
By the way, Google has held a ton of open forums for any primary candidate who wanted one, including your boy Ron Paul who had quite a following in Mountain View. I wrote about it here.
Also, if you kind find evidence of the company openly advocating for Obama or you can share corporate policy which states that their choice is Obama, by all means…let’s see it.
Thanks to both of you for your thoughts.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Just read an brief, but interesting blog post that has the following line:
In that context one can even justifiably invert the conventional complaint against the large retailer we hear in this country, and suggest that it is the small-business local market which is the genuine thief of the community, suppressing rising living standards, and accumulating unnecessary profits at the expense of the poor.
Read it, its got some interesting statistics about 3rd world development.
Justin, regarding this “convential complaint” which you have brought up here – that Wal-Mart drives out local competition – how many of those local competitors hire union labor? Should small, “family owned” retailers be pressured by Congress to unionize?
August 1st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I was unaware that Walmart is actively blocking other points of view. You called them craven for having the audicity to communicate their corporate opinion of national policy concerns to their employees and how those policies would effect them. I don’t find that craven. I find it intelligent and educational.
I hope they go a step further and explain in their annual report to stockholders, what corporate’s opinion of forced unionization will do to company earnings. Of course, Obama can’t really care about things like pensions and other retirement funds, exc. since he plans on significantly uppings the cap. gains rate, but at least Wal-Mart and other corporations, that hold trillions in private and institutional equity, (think 529 school funds, IRA’s, 401Ks) have a right, and a duty, to forecast the financial effects of public policy.
Thanks for the thanks. Likewise, the post was interest and I enjoy coming here to get this stuff.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Gotcha, Justin. You’re explicitly saying that it’s cowardly for a company to speak the truth to its management-level employees in defense of its own interests, as long as you hate the company. I’ll file that bit of dislogic for future reference–and use. Along with the offhand dismissal of all Walmart floor employees as ignorant hicks. And those poor unions, completely unable to “educate” those darn stupid workers on how to save themselves from eternal damnation without new legislation. Oh, the humanity! [/eyerolling_sarcasm]
Yes, WalMart tries to suppress unions–and they get gigged for it when they go over the lines. Unionization would cost them money and force them to raise prices. It would also cause them to reduce jobs. As long as their suppression attempts do not cross the line of legality, that’s their right. Just as it is the right of the unions to attempt to recruit and to “educate” those employees about the “benefits” of unionization, and the right of the employees to unionize if they can manage to raise the numbers to do so in a proper secret-ballot union election.
That certainly does not make the unions angelic saviors, the employers diabolically evil, or the employees drooling idiots. But thank you for either stating or implying all of those. My God, dude, that’s both condescending and insulting.
The bill under contention would indeed give unions the power to strong-arm employees in union organizing elections. Do you believe the “cure” to WalMart’s anti-union efforts is to enable increased strong-arm coercion of voters on the part of the unions, by stripping the voters of the secret ballot? Or is the entire point of your post simply to say “I HATE WALMART!” and all the rest just window dressing?
August 1st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Ouch.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:39 am
First off, and this is directed at EVERYBODY, you can be pro-worker and not be anti-business. Yes, those two viewpoints can actually co-exist.
Second, I think it’s pretty clear I’m saying it’s cowardly for them to “educate” their employees like this and not acknowledge that they’re trying to scare them away from voting for Obama.
As I stated in the original post…
So unless you think I changed my position between that sentence and my last comment, I’d ask you take my word for it and not play this “gothca” game.
To this point…
Really?
REALLY???
When did I even come close to characterizing anybody like this?
I freely admitted in my original post (i.e. before you showed up) that unions have issues.
Also, I’m stating that Wal-Mart specifically is routinely cited both in the media and the courts for unfair labor practices, not all “employers.”
As for the “drooling” part…well, the “elitist” argument is pretty tired, is it not? But hey, go down that road if you want. Meanwhile, they’re getting not so veiled threats that a vote for Obama could put them out of work. And unless you can prove to me that their workforce unionizing will put a bunch of people out of work, it’s merely speculation on your part.
Oh, and by the way…I don’t hate Wal-Mart. Do I like how they treat their employees? No. Those two viewpoints can coexist as well.
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:59 am
Tully,
Wal-Mart never gets gigged for anything hard enough to really hurt them. Do you not remember what happened to Wal-Mart meat cutters when they voted to unionize? That their jobs were eliminated within weeks and Wal-Mart claimed that it was, of course, pure coincidence. What happened to them when they did that? Nothing.
How you’ve managed to miss the fact that unions have almost no rights in today’s United States with the people currently at the NLRB and people with your attitudes towards them willing to back them is beyond me.
After all, you wrote this to Justin.
But didn’t you imply the opposite? That the employers are the good and virtuous who might occasionally step over the line but it’s justified because the unions are diabolically evil? It certainly seems that way. In another post on another subject you wrote of how you’d been involved in RealPolitik for far too long to fall for any of the things that Obama is saying about change. Maybe that’s the problem. Seen any proof of union corruption in modern unions? But your posts are full of assumptions about how the only reason that any union wants to organize workplaces is because of the money they’ll get out of them. And of course the employees would never have any reason to want to organize in a work environment like Wal-Mart. Never.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I agree with Tully that seceret ballots ought o be preserved,
but leaving aside the legislation and Walmart’s characterization of the alleged risks, I have to wonder whether Walmart does themselves any favor by trying to “educate” their employees.
Walmart is a crappy company to work for, even within retail, which is itself a crappy sector to be in. The pay and bennies stink, in both real and comparative terms. I have been out of retail too long to know whether walmart employees routinely assume that management will try to mislead them on issues like this, or to know for sure whether Walmart employees wish they had a union to represent them collectively.
If Walmart does unionize, it will not be very good for Walmart or its shareholders, and it won’t be great for Walmart customers, who largely buy on price. But it probably will lead to somewhat better wages, benefits, and so on for such employees. Until the next Walmart comes along.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:44 am
[...] I wrote about Wal-Mart’s attempt to “educate” their employees about the risks of voting for Obama this year, and it seems like the labor unions have taken note too. [...]