National Day of Action Nov. 21
Labor launches Wal-Mart organizing drive
By Mary Owen
The union drive to organize Wal-Mart workers got a big boost
on Nov. 21 at stores in all 50 states. Labor, community, civil
rights, environmental and consumer activists held events to
demand justice and a union for Wal-Mart workers and to expose
the retail giant's anti-union practices.
Wal-Mart, the country's largest retailer, just reported
billions of dollars in third-quarter profits from its 3,300
stores in the U.S. and around the world. Those profits came
from the unpaid labor of over 1 million Wal-Mart employees and
millions of other workers who toil for slave wages in the
sweatshop factories of Wal-Mart suppliers.
Most Wal-Mart workers in the U.S. are paid less than $9 an
hour, or $18,000 per year. Out of that, they have to pay
thousands of dollars for insurance coverage. Not one of those
workers is in a union. The Food and Commercial Workers Union
(UFCW), with labor and community support, is organizing to
change that.
"It's essential that the biggest company in the world treat
its employees decently, with decent wages and benefits," Bill
Meyer, director of the union drive in Nevada, told the New York
Times (Nov. 8). "It's going to be a struggle. It's not going to
be overnight."
Many Wal-Mart and affiliated Sam's Club discount stores are
in rural areas with no union traditions and few other job
opportunities. This corporate outlaw has a history of
anti-union actions--such as illegal firings of pro-union
workers--aimed at intimidating workers and hampering
organizing.
The one time that Wal-Mart workers successfully
organized--in 2000 in the meat department of a Jacksonville,
Tex., store--the company phased out the butchers two weeks
later and announced it would use prepackaged meat at that store
and 179 others.
But with the union's help, Wal-Mart workers have fought back
in the courts and on the ground. The National Labor Relations
Board has issued 40 complaints against Wal-Mart in 25 states
for labor law violations. The union says most cases occurred at
the 90 stores where organizing has been most active.
In June, the Kentucky Human Rights Commission ordered
Wal-Mart to pay $40,000 in back pay to an interracial couple
the company fired for dating. And just last week, Alaska
Wal-Mart worker Ken Stanhope was reinstated in his job with
full back pay after an NLRB judge ruled that Wal-Mart
"eviscerated" his rights. Wal-Mart fired him from its Wasilla
store over a conversation with a coworker about joining the
union. A similar case is pending in Boone, N.C.
Nearly 24 additional cases are awaiting adjudication. They
include two sexual discrimination lawsuits against Wal-Mart.
One is a federal class action involving discrimination against
women--Wal-Mart denies women health insurance coverage for
birth control. The National Organization for Women says
Wal-Mart saves about $5 million by denying contraceptive
coverage to its female workers. The other is a California case
charging Wal-Mart with gender bias in promotion, compensation
and job assignment.
On the National Day of Action at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart workers
and the UFCW took an important step by reaching out to
community residents and shoppers for support. The actions,
supported by the national AFL-CIO, were part of a broader
campaign to bring popular pressure on Wal-Mart, to expose the
dirty deeds of the giant discount conglomerate and to urge
justice for Wal-Mart workers.
For more information on this campaign, go to the community
action site at www.walmartwatch.org or to the Wal-Mart workers'
site, www.walmartyrs.org.
Reprinted from the Nov. 28, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
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