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We’ve been talking all week about the looming fight between Wal-Mart and the Obama Administration over labor reforms which might force Wal-Mart to treat its employees a little more fairly and give workers a little more say in the terms of their employment.

But we shouldn’t look at this as just a fight between Lee Scott and Barack Obama. There are 1.4 million Americans in the middle of this fight as well.

How has Wal-Mart been responding to the state of its workforce? Last week, Lee Scott was quoted talking non-specifically about his company’s response to the EFCA threat:

“We’re going to run this business,” Scott said. “Our associates are going to be productive. We’re going to reach out. We’re going to have relationships with our associates. We’re going to care about them and we’re going to serve our customers.”

("We’re going to care about them”?....that’s the best you can do, Lee? Anyone else think that sounds eerily like he’s admitting that he’s not caring about them now?)

But regardless, over the next year Wal-Mart execs will continue to tell us that all Wal-Mart employees are happy and productive and that all 1.4 million U.S. “associates” are one big warm fuzzy family. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. We know because every day we hear otherwise from Wal-Mart employees. Here’s a few more stories we’ve received lately.

Read these and more - in their entirety - on walmartspeakout.com:

“Why do you work overtime when you know that they will not pay you?”

“I have posted here a number of times before and I am always amazed that I have new bullets for my anti-Wal-Mart weaponry. No, my store doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to denying overtime pay.”

“Benefits” is a Loose Term to Wal-Mart

“When I was hired at Wal-Mart about 7 months ago, I was told by the hiring manager that Wal-Mart has the best benefits and I would receive then after 3 months. I believed him, but was in for a very rude awakening.”

Deaf Employee’s Request: Ignored

“I tried to apply for a promotion and they required me to do an interview over the phone, which was difficult considering there was no accommodation made for my disability.”

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Several stories over the past two days have outlined the oncoming fight between Wal-Mart and the Obama administration over labor reforms, primarily over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) - but also health care reform and a slew of other potential legislation.

This is no suprise for anyone. Wal-Mart isn’t stupid, it read the writing on the wall and has been preparing for a democratic win and a push for labor reform for a while. It’s been donating more money to politicians (including democrats) to curry favor, as well as funding major anti-EFCA initiatives (not to mention explicitly telling its employees to vote for John McCain.)

Other big business - retailers especially - will be play major roles in the fight, but no American Business’s model is more threatened by labor reform right now than Wal-Mart - which looks to be ground zero in the upcoming battle with the new administration.

A labor attorney quoted in Reuters sums it well:

“You’ll see an all-out battle at Wal-Mart” by labor, said attorney Richard Hankins, who leads the labor and employment practice at the law firm of Kilpatrick Stockton.

Jonathan Birchall at FT tells about the Obama administration could hit Wal-Mart on health care as well:

On healthcare, Mr Obama’s platform included setting a minimum contribution level for businesses to their employees’ healthcare plans - an approach that has been opposed at state level by big non-unionised retailers, including Wal-Mart...The retailer, with more than 1.3m staff, has said it wants to work on healthcare reform with a new administration.

And if Wal-Mart hadn’t already made it clear enough how much it refuses to change or pay its workers a dime more, check out the gall on Lee Scott - quoted by the Associated Press at the recent analysts’ meeting:

“It’ll be generations in the impact it [EFCA] has on this country. And it won’t be positive. I guarantee you that. It will not be positive. But for Wal-Mart, in the short term, and in the longer term on a relative basis with our peers, we’re going to run this business,” Scott said. He continued, ”We like driving the car and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.”

Will the next four years see better wages and benefits for Wal-Mart’s 1.4 million employees? Will it loosen Wal-Mart’s grip on the steering wheel? We look forward to finding out - and blogging about it. 

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Yesterday, Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, told reporters that Wal-Mart is “relentlessly non-partisan.” His claim does not make sense when you look at the facts.

While it is true that in the latest election cycle, Wal-Mart’s PAC is giving more money away to House Democrats than House Republicans by a $456,700 to $418,500 margin, Wal-Mart overwhelmingly supports conservative causes and groups. Released just a few weeks ago, our Walton influence website clearly shows how the Walton family and Wal-Mart both support a right wing agenda. In fact, Wal-Mart’s PAC is giving more money to Senate Republicans and more money to conservative PACs by a significant margin. In addition to PAC giving, Wal-Mart’s lobbying skews conservative. By lobbying against port security to save money on shipping costs, lobbying against country-of-origin labeling to shroud its supply chain in secrecy, and lobbying against the Americans with Disabilities Restoration Act, Wal-Mart shows its true colors.  After the release of the 3rd quarter lobbying numbers, Wal-Mart’s in-house lobbying expenditures jumped to $5.22 million dollars – a 3629% increase since 1999. And let’s not forget the Employee Free Choice Act. An August story in the Wall Street Journal shows just how far Wal-Mart will go to prevent an Obama victory and unionization in its stories.

The Walton family is no different. The family, which controls 43% of Wal-Mart’s stock, is consistently pushing a right wing agenda. Worth over $100 billion dollars, the Walton family is free to spend their billion on causes like the school voucher movement. Public school supporters worry that the Walton family exerts a disproportionate level of influence in this area. Since 2000, the Walton Family Foundation donated over $47 million to the Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation, a lobbying organization devoted to weakening the public school system in America by “providing research and publications to school choice groups and submitting amicus curie briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court on voucher issues.” The Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), which promotes the voucher movement to African-American families, received over $3.8 million from the Walton Family Foundation since 2002. 

Sounds like Wal-Mart and the Walton family are relentlessly partisan to us. 

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Andy Stern, head of the SEIU, speaking about the Employee Free Choice Act on Meet the Bloggers. On what the EFCA is, and why it would benefit workers:

If we understand what’s happening in America today, the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing pretty wide and pretty fast, which leads to all those foreclosures and other debt problems you talked about. One of the ways American workers used to get a raise was they had a union. And they way they got a union was they could make their own choice about whether they wanted to have an organization to talk to their employer about their wages and their heath care. And over the last 50 years what we’ve seen, is the courts and the corporations begin to eat away at those rights. So the Employee Free Choice Act just modernizes the national labor relations laws of our country, that again allow workers to make their own choice about whether they have a union, and tell the employer “We’ll see you after we have a majority of people who want to talk with you at the collective bargaining table, and until then this is our decision not your decision.

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That part about the socks is true. They say Obama doesn’t even know how many socks he owns.

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For those of you who’ve seen Wal-Mart’s training videos, this new short from American Rights at Work will ring particularly true.

I don’t know about you, but that bottle of soda does look pretty enticing.

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This video from American Rights at Work tells the story of workers’ attempts to unionize at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and why the Employee Free Choice Act is crucial for workers everywhere. As is often the case with Wal-Mart, Yale-New Haven was the largest employer in the area and employees repeatedly tried to unionize at the hospital without success. And like Wal-Mart, hospital workers in the video describe mandatory meetings held with mangers who used fear mongering to discourage unionization. The video’s case for EFCA is persuasive not only for employees at Yale-New Haven Hospital, but workers across the country.

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While the FEC investigates Wal-Mart’s possibly-illegal attempts to influence the votes of its employees, writers at the Legal Times discuss what those mandatory meetings exposed. While obviously making clear how much Wal-Mart fears unionization - and how much its managers exaggerate the impact of Democrats and the Employee Free Choice Act - the meetings also exposed the national need for stronger laws against employee intimidation.

Chained to Office Politics [Legal Times]

Imagine you work for the largest company in town. You live from paycheck to paycheck like a large portion of lower- to middle-wage workers and can’t afford to be without a job for long. Your company has pretty high turnover, and it has a reputation for firing people it labels troublemakers, people who don’t fit into the corporate culture.

Now imagine that at a mandatory work meeting, your supervisor warns you that Congress is considering legislation that will make it easier for unions to come into your company. A union here would be a disaster, the supervisor warns, and would mean layoffs, or even worse, closing down entire locations. Unions are bad news. And just to top it off, if a Democrat gets into the White House, we can be sure that bill in Congress will become the law. So think about that, he says, when you’re in that voting booth.

This speech might make you a little nervous about what your supervisor thinks your political leanings are. You might be very careful about what you say to be sure it can’t be interpreted to support the Democrats, particularly if your company has the reputation of firing people who support unionizing. And since your employer is the biggest in town, you watch what you say no matter where you are. You can’t afford to have anything get back to the company.

Read the rest of this story ...

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Last month, the Wall Street Journal exposed the fact that Wal-Mart was telling its employees to vote against the Democrats in November - fearful that a Democrat in the White House would pass legislation making it easier for workers to unionize. Today, an op-ed by Congressman Rahm Emanuel in the Wall Street Journal suggests that Wal-Mart’s potentially illegal activities may even be misguided. Emanuel suggests that Wal-Mart is ignoring the economic facts in advocating for Republicans, and has actually fared better under a Democratic administration. 

The piece explains that the American middle class - Wal-Mart’s core demographic - has always done better under Democrat administrations. Supporting measures that bolster the working class - such as the Employee Free Choice Act, which the company warned against - would mean better living for Wal-Mart’s employees AND its shareholders. Such support might mean thinking outside the box for this notoriously Republican company, but Wal-Mart stands only to gain from such innovations.

Opinion: Wal-Mart Thrives When Democrats Are in Charge [Wall Street Journal]

Last month, reports surfaced indicating that Wal-Mart managers and department heads were holding meetings with associates and warning of dire consequences if Barack Obama is elected president.

Wal-Mart may have its political reasons to vote Republican, but if economics are the criteria, Wal-Mart should be rooting for a Democratic administration. Instead, the company whose television ads encourage you to save money and live better is ignoring the economic facts and backing Republican economic policies that have resulted in families losing money and living worse.

Read the rest of this story ...

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Two stories in the Chinese press last week show that collective bargaining agreements are spreading across Wal-Mart’s China stores like wildfire. Several stores even had union card signing ceremonies, showing that employees take pride in their union membership.

The unions at Wal-Mart’s store in China are made possible in large part by China’s powerful retail labor laws. Strong governmental involvement has thus far been the most effective tool in the quest for Wal-Mart unionization. While workers in China bargain collectively for better pay and better benefits, politicians in the U.S. work to strengthen labor laws here so unionization is not just a possibility, but something workers can accomplish and take pride in.

900 Wal-Mart Employees in Wuhan Sign Collective Contract [Sina Finance]

On August 26, officials from the Wal-Mart store on Xudong Street and the store on Zhongshan Street in Wuhan, Hubei and the local labor union held a collective contract signing ceremony…

This collective contract involves nearly 900 Wal-Mart employees from two stores.  The contract addresses essential issues such as wage increases, paid vacation, social security, worker safety, etc. with clear-cut provisions.  The contract includes a mechanism to collectively consult on wages.  For 2008 and 2009 full-time employee wages will increase an average of 8%.  Workers with at least three years may sign the contract without a fixed deadline with provisions on salary, vacation, social security, working women’s rights, benefits, protections, etc. and employee welfare.  “Henceforth, we employees have the right to demand wage increases,” a labor union representative from the Zhongshan store expressed.

Wage Talks Defend Employee Interests, Three Wal-Mart Stores in Changsha Sign Collective Contract [Sina News]

Presently, Hunan has 27,000 companies that have agreed to collective contracts – establishing mechanisms to evaluate equality.  For collective contracts, labor unions and workers elect representatives to consult and negotiate on issues such as wage and hour, work conditions, rest and vacations, worker health and safety, insurance, etc.

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We’ll be extremely busy this weekend relaxing and celebrating the valiant efforts of American workers, so in the meantime - a brief round up of the week’s Wal-Mart blogs.

DEADLY BASSINETS SOLD AT WAL-MART

Wal-Mart Still Selling Dangerous Cribs [WakeUpWal-Mart.com Blog]

Wal-Mart has long been plagued with recalls of dangerous products, and it has often been implicated in taking too little action about such products. Now it seems Wal-Mart is still selling a dangerous crib that is responsible for two deaths.

CPSC uses new authority against defiant manufacturer of dangerous bassinets after another tragic death [U.S. PIRG blog]

Here is the story yesterday at Consumeraffairs.com. I hope Wal-Mart (mentioned in this story) and other retailers have stopped selling these products, since being notified of the imminent hazard warning. And I assure readers, if SFCA’s defense somehow prevails in court, that the Congress will be quick with a technical correction to the new law.

After the jump, Wal-Mart’s local food, more on the company’s mandatory meetings and the new Marketside stores.

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Today we received a letter from Jeff Jordan at the Federal Election Commission responding to the formal complaint Wal-Mart Watch filed against Wal-Mart for holding meetings warning employees not to vote for Democrats.

Wal-Mart will be notified with our official complaint within five days, and the FEC has promised to notify us when “final action” is taken. We’ll let you know when we hear more.

Read the full response letter here, and read the original complaint letter here.

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Yesterday, the New York Times’ editorial rebuked Wal-Mart for its worker intimidation during this federal election cycle.  The NYT editorial refers to the front page WSJ story on Wal-Mart mobilizing its managers to vote Republican in the upcoming elections.  The Times chastises the company not only for its relentless anti-union efforts, including numerous citations by the National Labor Relations Board, but also for its blatant violation federal election laws.

According to the Times, “Telling workers who are paid by the hour — Wal-Mart department supervisors are hourly workers — how to vote is prohibited under the Federal Election Campaign Act…The Federal Election Commission should investigate the allegations swiftly and aggressively. The ‘rogue executive’ defense is a well-trodden excuse that should fool no one. Providing workers with a list of members of Congress who, in Wal-Mart’s view, support bad legislation that would worsen workers lives seems indistinguishable from telling them who to vote against.”

Recap:  “indistinguishable from telling them who to vote against.” This type of coercion has proved an integral part of Wal-Mart’s business practices.  One can only hope that the FEC will fulfill its duty to investigate, particularly when the nation’s largest private employer has attempted to silence one of the few measures its workers have to speak out against it.

Read the full reprimand below.  Well done New York Times…bravo.

Mixing Politics and Wal-Mart [New York Times]

It is hardly news that Wal-Mart will do whatever it takes to keep unions out of its stores, from closing down a unionized outlet to firing pro-union workers. The National Labor Relations Board has already ruled several times that Wal-Mart has violated the law by retaliating against workers for supporting a union.

Facing the prospect that union-friendly Democrats could win both the White House and Congress, the retail giant is now turning its attention to this year’s election.

Last week, several labor groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Wal-Mart of violating election rules. They acted after The Wall Street Journal reported that thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads had been called to mandatory meetings and told that if Democrats won in November they would likely pass a law to make it easier to unionize companies. According to The Journal, Wal-Mart executives warned that could force the company to cut jobs, while workers would be forced to pay union dues and might have to go on strike.

Telling workers who are paid by the hour — Wal-Mart department supervisors are hourly workers — how to vote is prohibited under the Federal Election Campaign Act.

Read the rest of this story ...

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The Associated Press recently released an examination of Wal-Mart’s lobbying disclosure form for last quarter. Over a three month span, Wal-Mart lobbying expenditures reached $1.4 million, fighting legislation relevant to labor issues, cargo security, and health care. Wal-Mart brazenly fought against the Employee Free Choice Act – a bill which would give employees more leverage in the quest for fair wages and affordable health care. Even more egregious may be its combativeness towards the ADA Restoration Act – a pending piece of legislation which would clarify the rights of peoples with disabilities. See the full article from the Associated Press:

Wal-Mart spent $1.4M lobbying government in 2Q [Associated Press via MSN Money]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, spent nearly $1.4 million in the second quarter lobbying the federal government on union matters, cargo security and other issues, according to a recent disclosure form.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company, which has 1.3 million domestic employees, lobbied on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Wal-Mart and the Retail Industry Leaders Association mounted a successful legal challenge to a Maryland law that required companies with more than 10,000 workers to devote at least 8 percent of its payroll to paying for employee health insurance. The judge ruled that ERISA pre-empted the state requirements.

The Employee Choice Act, over which Wal-Mart has drawn criticism for having politically partisan sessions with employees, was also listed, as was the Family Medical Leave Act and the American with Disabilities Restoration Act, according to the form filed July 21 with the House clerk’s office.

Wal-Mart Vice President of Corporate Affairs Raymond Bracy is listed on the reporting form as the company’s lobbyist. The form shows he also lobbied regarding a variety of tax issues and on legislation regarding Chinese imports and China’s currency.

Read the rest of this story ...

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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.”

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Today, several labor groups asked the FEC to investigate Wal-Mart. Last week, Wal-Mart Watch submitted a formal complaint to the Federal Election Committee last week, requesting an investigation of Wal-Mart’s political intimidation. From the letter:

As reported in the Wall Street Journal on August 1, 2008, in a piece entitled “Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win,” Wal-Mart has been mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors across the country to warn them of a Democratic victory in the November general election. More specifically, it has been reported that Wal-Mart has been informing its employees that a Democratic victory in November could lead to the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which in turn would allow workers to form unions without the fear of being fired and allow a simple majority of employees to certify a union to act as their representative.

Wal-Mart representatives deny any wrongdoing, and only an FEC investigation would answer this question for sure. Meanwhile, controversy still remains over Wal-Mart’s fear-mongering insistence that unions will bring fewer jobs and yet lower wages to the company’s employees. Its attempt to intimidate employees out of standing up for their rights is doubly shameful, and while we await an FEC investigation, the company’s anti-union misrepresentation and propagandizing should not be overlooked.

Wal-Mart Should Be Probed Over Political Meetings, Group Says [Bloomberg News]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. should be probed by federal regulators over reports that company officials broke the law by advising employees against voting Democratic in the November elections, a worker advocacy group said.

Wal-Mart Watch has requested the Federal Election Commission investigate media reports that Wal-Mart managers advised employees against voting for Democratic candidates, according to a letter to the FEC dated Aug. 6. Managers told employees that a Democratic victory could lead to the formation of a union, which might impose fees on workers, the letter said, citing a Wall Street Journal story.

“These are serious actions taken by Wal-Mart which are in violation of federal election law, and we request that you investigate them to the fullest extent possible,’’ wrote David Nassar, executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, in the letter.

Wal-Mart denies breaking the law.

Read the rest of this story ...

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Representatives from some of the nation’s largest labor organizations will be a formal letter to the FEC today requesting an investigation of Wal-Mart’s political meetings with employees. Along with the letter are the names of thousands of activists who signed a petition endorsing the request.

While Wal-Mart’s political involvement here might have been illegal - an FEC investigation would determine that for sure - the company’s message in its meetings was indisputably anti-union and anti-worker. The specter of unionization at its U.S. stores has Wal-Mart executives nervous, and the company’s actions reveal its intent to keep employees paid poorly and too afraid to speak up. The most important thing that could come out of this discussion of Wal-Mart’s practices is for store employees to realize federal law protects their right to speak out and band together.

Unions Seek Probe of Wal-Mart Over Election Law [Wall Street Journal]

Prominent labor groups are seeking an investigation into whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. violated federal election laws by telling employees that electing Democrats would lead to passage of legislation making it easier to unionize companies.

In a letter to be delivered as early as Thursday, the labor groups are asking the Federal Election Commission to determine whether the company “made prohibited corporate expenditures” by organizing meetings across the country to warn employees that a Democratic president would back legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which the company opposes. The groups say such statements amount to advocating the defeat of Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the November election.

Companies aren’t permitted under federal election law to expressly advocate to hourly employees the election or defeat of specific candidates. The complaint cites as its source an Aug. 1 front-page article in The Wall Street Journal that reported the Bentonville, Ark., retailer held meetings with thousands of store managers and department supervisors across the country to discuss the legislation.

Read the rest of this story ...

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If you haven’t already, we encourage everyone to sign American Rights at Work’s petition asking the Federal Election Committee to investigate Wal-Mart’s possible electioneering. More than 24,000 people have already signed on, and the more support for the petition, the better. In a post today on the Huffington Post, Michael Whitney from American Rights at Work takes a look at why Wal-Mart’s political involvement in this case should be considered illegal, as well as why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important.

Time To Investigate Wal-Mart’s Anti-Democrat Electioneering [Huffington Post]

When the news broke earlier this month that Wal-Mart started organizing its store supervisors against Barack Obama and other pro-worker candidates who support the Employee Free Choice Act, there was widespread outrage—and rightly so.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

“The meeting leader said, ‘I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won’t have a vote on whether you want a union,’” said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. “I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote,” she said.

Yikes! This obviously raises a lot of questions, but let’s start with two I want to specifically address: Is this legal? And what is Wal-Mart afraid of?

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The recent front-page story in the Wall Street Journal revealed a startling practice at Wal-Mart. Employees at the company spoke out about mandatory staff meetings Wal-Mart has been holding to urge its employees not to vote for pro-worker candidates in November. Not only is Wal-Mart’s behavior in this case morally reprehensible, it’s potentially illegal—and now you can help hold Wal-Mart accountable.

American Rights at Work has created a petition asking the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to investigate Wal-Mart’s potential voter intimidation of its workers. We want to get as many people as possible to sign on so we can hand deliver the petition on your behalf to the FEC office later this week.

Show Wal-Mart that the American people won’t let it tell its workers how to vote—add your name to the petition:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/fec

Wal-Mart has a long history of anti-worker practices, and the company has been fined again and again for violations of many different worker protection laws.

But so far the retail giant has refused to change its ways. These latest allegations of possible electioneering by urging hourly employees not to vote for Democratic candidates show that Wal-Mart will continue to abuse workers’ rights unless someone steps up to stop it.

That’s exactly what our petition to the FEC will do. Wal-Mart may be a big, influential company, but even the world’s largest retailer can’t hide from the FEC. Help us make sure there is a full investigation into Wal-Mart’s actions—sign the petition today:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/fec

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In the third post in this week’s series on Wal-Mart and China, we turn our attention to Wal-Mart recently-unionzed stores in China. While working conditions in many of China’s industrial factories remain abysmal, workers at Wal-Mart’s stores across China are bargaining collectively and China holds the title of being the only country with a unionized Wal-Mart store. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart employees in North America continue to face anti-union intimidation from supervisors, or, as in the case of several employees in Canada, actual union-busting by the company.

Wal-Mart’s decision to allow unions at its stores in China is less a sign of compassion for its employees and more an indicator of Wal-Mart’s intense desire to expand in China. As the company reaches saturation in the United States - and meets increasingly difficult opposition as it tries to expand - Wal-Mart has come to rely on its international stores for a larger and larger percent of its profits. To build with more efficiency internationally, the retailer has made a number of exceptions to its normally unchanging business model. Some of those changes have been smaller store formats, some have been unions at its stores.

Ideally, Wal-Mart would allow unions at its stores in countries without dictatorial, totalitarian governments. The fact that Wal-Mart’s stores in China - where the government has enormous say in business dealings - are the only ones to unionize is a sad characterization of the company’s labor policies. Its actions imply Wal-Mart will only allow unions when forced to. Without the aid of strong government-backed support for workers (where could we find something like that...) how will Wal-Mart’s employees ever manage to stand up for their rights?