Did Wal-Mart violate federal law?

According to the Wall Street Journal’s recent story, corporations are permitted “to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees.” By many accounts, hourly employees were present in Wal-Mart meetings advocating against voting for the Democratic presidential nominee in November, and the company may have violated federal regulation if this is the case. Several groups have lodged formal complaints with the FEC, asking for an investigation

To help us sort through the nuanced finer points of federal election regulation, we turn to the bloggers of the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, all of whom have written on the matter. The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog notes “Companies aren’t permitted under federal election law to expressly advocate to hourly employees the election or defeat of specific candidates,” but goes on to say Wal-Mart may have violated federal labor regulations as well:

According to a digital recording of a Wal-Mart meeting made by a Wal-Mart employee and reviewed by the WSJ, the meeting leader told employees that their wages may be reduced to minimum wage for up to three months before a contract is negotiated, that union authorization cards violate workers’ right to privacy by including their Social Security numbers on them and that if a small unit within a store votes to unionize, the entire store will be unionized.

“The statements are not correct representations of what the law would require even under the current law,” said Jeffrey Hirsch, a labor lawyer in Boston. “It would be a violation of the national labor relations act to say those things.”

Steven Greenhouse at the New York Times Politics Blog goes farther with this argument, pointing out that Wal-Mart’s behavior in this case is only the latest example of a company-wide anti-union policy:

Wal-Mart, which has 1.4 million employees nationwide, has a reputation for fighting fiercely against unionization efforts. Wal-Mart officials say that store managers are told to comply with the law when they battle against unionization drives, although labor leaders cite numerous National Labor Relations Board decisions finding concluding that Wal-Mart had improperly fired union supporters or engaged in other illegal anti-union tactics.

“For years, Wal-Mart has been intimidating and harassing its workers who want to form unions,” said Mary Beth Maxwell, executive director of American Rights at Work, a union-financed advocacy group. “Now they’ve adapted their union-busting tactics to influence our federal election system.”

And finally, the Washington Post’s “The Trail” Blog helps explain why its important to address these issues, especially at Wal-Mart:

“Wal-Mart may be the world’s largest retailer, and America’s number one private employer, but it is not above the law,” said Meghan Scott, spokesperson for WakeUpWalMart.com. “Wal-Mart has intimidated its workers and attempted to scare them into voting against a particular party and candidate, and from what workers tell us, these meetings haven’t stopped. This behavior proves that Wal-Mart is willing to go to any lengths to put profits ahead of its workers.”

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, August 14, 2008

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