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The Shaw’s supermarket on Whalley Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut is closing down. It’s one of 18 stores that are being sold off by Shaw’s owner, SuperValu.

Most of the Shaw’s stores are being bought up by three other New England grocery chains, including Stop & Shop, ShopRite and PriceRite. The Shaw’s in New Haven doesn’t have a buyer yet. Wal-Mart is listed by Supermarket News as the largest grocery chain in the world. In America, Wal-Mart’s market share is in the mid 20% range for dry groceries, dairy and frozen foods.

Supervalu is listed as number 15 on the worldwide grocers list. Supervalu describes itself as a “mix of owned, licensed, franchised and affiliated stores, (which) serves millions of families from coast-to-coast.” The retail banners that Supervalu operates include: Acme, Albertsons, Bigg’s Bristol Farms, Cub, Farm Fresh, Hornbackaer, Jewe-Osco, Shaw’s/Star Market, Shop ‘N Save, and Shoppers. The company also controls the discount grocery chain Save-A-Lot.

The Shaw’s lineage goes back to 1860, when George C. Shaw opened his first store in Portland, Maine. A few years later, another native New Englander, Maynard A. Davis, opened his first Public Markets in Brockton and New Bedford, Massachusetts. These two stores merged, and today the Shaw’s/Star Market chain has over 30,000 workers in the six New England states---soon to be five states. The 18 stores being shut down represent around 9% of the 194 stores under the Shaw’s banner.

Supervalu as a conglomerate controls roughly 4,300 retail outlets in the United States. “We bring our national scale and local hyper-relevance to thousands of consumers, helping to make us ‘America’s Neighborhood Grocer.’” But in Connecticut, Supervalu is leaving the neighborhood.

According to the Hartford Courant’s account of the Shaw’s meltdown this week, the company had a 15 year track record in Connecticut, but had come under increasing pressures from competitors like Wal-Mart and Whole Foods. Today Wal-Mart has only 5 superstores in Connecticut, and 28 discount stores. But in 1994, just as Shaw’s was preparing to enter Connecticut, the state had only 2 Wal-Mart discount stores, and no supercenters.

A spokesman for Supermarket News told the Hartford Courant that Shaw’s had failed to differentiate itself. “They’ve had an inconsistent identity with the shopper. In order for a conventional supermarket to stand out, they have to be special, whether that’s local flavor or product or service offerings that are unique.” At their point of highest penetration, Shaw’s had 26 stores in Connecticut, but over the years they shut down 8 stores. A spokesman for Supervalu told the Courant, “While these decisions are always difficult given the impact on associates and customers, they ultimately allow us to operate more efficiently and effectively within a highly competitive retail environment.” That’s of little consolation to the workers who are losing their jobs in the middle of this recession.

What you can do: Many of the former Shaw’s stores will be unionized under their new owners. Brian Petronella, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) local 371, said 5 of the ShopRites will be represented by the UFCW. Local 371 will also represent the new Stop & Shop stores. The UFCW extended a hand to the Shaw’s workers who will work at ShopRite stores that are not unionized. “We will try to help those people get jobs at union locations,” Petronella told the Courant.

The demise of Shaw’s in Connecticut is just a continuation of the shift in market share towards the largest grocer in the world: Wal-Mart. In 2003, a study by Retail Forward, entitled “Wal-Mart Food: Big, and Getting Bigger,” pointed out that just ten or fifteen years ago, “Wal-Mart was barely on the food radar screen. Virtually overnight, the retailing behemoth has become the dominant grocer in America.” In 2003, Wal-Mart sales were bigger than the combined sales of the top ten U.S. supermarket retailers. “Wal-Mart has the proven ability to quickly blanket a market with its multi-format approach,” said Retail Forward, “to become a dominant---if not leading—market share player in rapid fashion, wreaking havoc for the incumbents.”

The latest incumbent is Shaw’s supermarkets. Seven years ago, Retail Forward predicted that “for every Wal-Mart supercenter that opens in the next five years, two supermarkets will close their doors. As a result, the supermarket industry is projected to lose 2,000 more stores over the next five years.” The consultant concluded that grocery stores can survive, but “the key is to be what Wal-Mart is not.” The analysts will say that Shaw’s failed to find a “distinct positioning strategy” that set them apart. But the fact is, the Connecticut market is saturated with grocery stores, and most of Wal-Mart’s stores still do not carry a full line of groceries--so the problem will get worse if Connecticut communities let Wal-Mart build more superstores.

Readers are urged to copy this article and send it to their local city or town officials with the following note: “When Wal-Mart files a proposal for a superstore in our town, please learn from the lesson of Shaw’s supermarkets, and understand that a Wal-Mart opening merely leads to to other stores closing. It does not happen overnight---but it happens---and when it does, people lose their jobs, and no added value comes to the local economy. It’s just an unproductive game of retail musical chairs, and shifting market share. Wal-Mart sales comes largely from other cash registers. If you understand that, then you behave differently when the superstore comes knocking on your door.”

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Big news out of Canada.  Wal-Mart has filed an injunction to try to censor the online initiatives of the UFCW in their efforts to reach out to Wal-Mart workers and provide an online forum for them to share their stories. The move filed by Wal-Mart seeks to remove similar Wal-Mart logos and expressions.

Their reasoning? Wal-Mal is worried that the website is “deprecating the value of the goodwill” of their brand. Rest assured Wal-Mart, you did that a long time ago.

Keep reading for Al Norman’s must-read expert analysis.

This breaking news story should be placed in the circular file. Watch what you say around Wal-Mart Canada.

Over the years, the giant retailer, in exercising its own brand of censorship, has forced recording artists to change lyrics and ‘sanitize’ album covers, removed certain magazines from its racks, and generally cultivated its own corporate sense of what the public should or shouldn’t see. Now the retailer has developed a list of words and images that it doesn’t want its workers to read on a union website. On June 19, 2009, the Wal-Mart Canada Corporation filed an injunction in Montreal to force the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada from using words like “Wal-Mart” alone or with other words “in a color scheme of blue, white and gold” which is similar to that adopted by Wal-Mart Canada.

The injunction seeks to bar the UFCW from using such words or symbols on its website, business cards, flyers or advertising. The company has included in its injunction “an oval, circular or semi-circular design that adopts the essential characteristics and color scheme of Wal-Mart’s Rebranded Indicia.” Wal-Mart Canada also wants the union to “immediately take down the website” http://www.walmartworkerscanada.ca, and to stop using the expression “Get Respect. Live Better,” which the retailer says infringes on its trademarked phrase, “Save Money. Live Better.”

The union would be banned from using Wal-Mart’s new “spark design” that includes “spokes or figures” like the company’s logo. Also on the banned list would be the words “Wal-Mart Workers Canada,” and the use of any images or photos of people wearing “the blue vest and name tag badge similar to those worn on the job by Wal-Mart employees in Canada.” Wal-Mart charges that the UFCW’s website and its images constitute a violation of Canada’s Trade Marks Act, and that the UFCW actions are “deprecating the value of the goodwill” of the company’s trademarks.

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Bloomberg is reporting today that Wal-Mart and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are among those opposing legislation that would allow the U.S. to cut off duty-free imports from factories in Pakistan and Afghanistan, if they fail to adhere to international labor standards on matters such as prohibiting forced labor and child labor. The bill, titled the Afghanistan-Pakistan Security and Prosperity Enhancement Act, is meant to help strengthen democracy in the two countries by creating “Reconstruction Opportunity Zones” and increasing their ability to export goods to the U.S. - and in return, it only requires that the countries make sure their factories are providing adequate working conditions.

Wal-Mart, however, is among those arguing that such labor restrictions would reduce any beneficial effect the legislation might otherwise have - and besides, if factories in Pakistan can’t export products to the U.S. because of labor and human rights abuses, Wal-Mart can’t then turn around and sell those products at their everyday low prices, right?

“Pakistan doesn’t have a good record in terms of child labor and the employment of women,” [Susan Aaronson, a professor at George Washington University in Washington who has written on trade and human rights] said. “This ensures the rule of law will be followed.”

The House bill states that each country “shall continue to receive duty-free treatment under this Act only if the President determines and certifies to Congress that Afghanistan or Pakistan, as the case may be has implemented the requirements set forth” - said requirements including insuring the following:

(A) compliance with core labor standards; and
(B) compliance with the labor laws of Afghanistan or Pakistan, as the case may be, that relate directly to core labor standards and to ensuring acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational health and safety.

We’ve already documented Wal-Mart’s sourcing issues in other international locales, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising that they would oppose such regulations here. Links to summaries of both the House version of the bill (with labor requirements) and the Senate version can be found after the jump.

Obama’s Bid to Boost Exports From Pakistan Hits Snag Over Labor [Bloomberg]

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So were back to this? And we thought worker intimidation was soooooooo last year.

In 2007, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing Wal-Mart’s unionbusting policies and practices in the United States. According to the report, “while many American companies use weak U.S. laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus.”

That aggressiveness is back in the news, courtesy of a unionizing push in St. Paul, Minnesota:

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 filed unfair labor practices complaints this week with the National Labor Relations Board. The union contends that during meetings with employees at its Midway store in St. Paul, Wal-Mart managers said people who sign union authorization cards would be fired. The union also charges that store managers interrogated employees regarding their union support and whether they had signed cards in favor of the union.

Of course this shouldn’t be very surprising, though it does seem pretty interesting that management staff came right out and told people that they’d no longer be a Wal-Mart employee if they supported unionization. You’d think they would hew closer to the Godfather-esque, vague threat route - we can’t be held responsible if, say, a supporter “had an accident” type thing. They should know that threatening workers’ employment status is illegal, right? Or do they just not care? One thing we do know is that they’ve certainly had problems with labor issues in Minnesota before.

Anyway, we’re attempting to get a copy of the NLRB complaint. In the meantime, feel free to check out video of the Local 789 worker rally after the jump.

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In a unionizing effort that stretches back to 2004, it would appear that Wal-Mart has once again attained the upper hand.

After four years of legal wrangling, Wal-Mart workers in Weyburn, Saskatchewan were finally granted union status last December. It had been four years since the United Food and Commercial Workers union originally filed an application to represent the Weyburn Wal-Mart workers based on the fact that more than half the store’s workers had signed union cards, but victory seemed within grasp. And that victory seem even closer in April, when an application Wal-Mart filed for reconsideration of union certification was dismissed by the Labour Relations Board of Saskatchewan.

Wal-Mart appealed, however, and now a Saskatchewan judge has pulled a Lucy, yanking the football away from Weyburn’s band of Charlie Browns.

A Saskatchewan judge has overturned the union certification of a Weyburn Wal-Mart store, saying workers should be allowed to vote on the matter...The law in 2004 was that if more than 50 per cent of employees signed cards, a secret ballot vote wasn’t required. However, after the Saskatchewan Party won the 2007 provincial election, defeating the NDP, the law changed — an employee vote is now mandatory before certification can be considered.

Where the Labour Relations Board had held that the applicable law was that in place at the time union status was filed for, this judge took the opposite route. He ruled that the amended law should have been the basis of the Labour Board’s decision when it ruled last year.

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The U.S. International Trade Commission has made an announcement, and that announcement is one we shouldn’t be surprised by at this point. The ITC has ruled that U.S. tire companies are being harmed by cheap products from China, and as a result President Obama will have to decide whether to impose tariffs or quotas on the country that, thanks to Wal-Mart, is now America’s largest source of imports.

Of course, Wal-Mart’s tire business isn’t the only factor behind the ruling, but it certainly is one of the biggest. China sent 21 million tires to the U.S. in 2005, and that more than doubled to 46 million by last year. For its part, Modern Tire Dealer reports that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has close to 3,200 outlets selling tires, although most of those sales are concentrated in its approximately 2,435-store Tire & Lube Service Centers nationwide.

The (United Steelworkers) union said China has more than tripled its tire exports to the U.S. between 2004 and 2008, ending jobs for 5,100 American workers. The union said another 3,000 workers would lose their jobs by the end of the year.

The next move for the ITC will be to come up with come up with recommendations on what the President should do to help U.S. companies, including a couple familiar names based in Ohio - Akron-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Findlay-based Cooper Tire.

The case is the first test for Obama on trade with China, after he vowed during his presidential campaign last year to help unions or domestic industries seeking relief from foreign competition. Since the election, he also has pledged to avoid protectionism so as not to exacerbate the global recession.

U.S. agency rules for tire producers in China case [Bloomberg News]

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It isn’t EFCA, but this week the Oregon legislature took its own step towards ending employer intimidation towards employees seeking to form a union. The Oregon Senate passed Senate Bill 519 - the Worker Freedom Act - by a 16-14 vote. The vote nearly split down party lines, with 16 Democrats voting in favor, and 12 Republicans (plus two Democrats) voting against. The measure now moves to the Oregon House, where a similar bill passed in 2007.

Senate Bill 519, which moved to the House on a 16-14 vote, bars businesses from requiring workers to attend company-organized meetings about politics — including union organizing — and religion. There are exceptions for churches and political parties.

The House bill passed 31-27 in 2007, and five more Democrats have since joined the state house. So, needless to say, the measure’s chance of becoming law are looking pretty good.

With public and legislative support behind the bill - 88% of Oregonians, in a December poll, said they did not think an employer should be allowed to force workers to attend meetings about the employer’s opinion on politics, religion, or union organizing - Oregon’s AFL-CIO President appeared surprised in an April email alert that Republicans were fighting the measure so strenuously. As you will note, the bill doesn’t bar the meetings from taking place - it simply bars employers from taking retribution against employees who choose not to attend meetings on politics, religion or union organizing during work hours.

“SB 519 simply states that an employer can’t discipline or fire a worker for opting out of a meetings on one of these topics. Are our Senators, and are the business associations who opposed this bill, upset that we are limiting their right to fire a worker who disagrees with their political or religious views? That’s all this bill does.”

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Much is made of Wal-Mart’s presence in China - from the fact that many of its products are sourced there to the realization that the growing power remains a prime target for Wal-Mart’s expansion.

Harold Meyerson, in his Washington Post column marking the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, poses that it has been American capitalism - chiefly the Wal-Marts of the world - that has spurred the growth of China into a rising superpower:

The transfer of manufacturing from the United States to China—driven by the rise of mega-retailers such as Wal-Mart that have been able to enforce a regime of low wages all along their global supply chains—has diminished our middle class and expanded theirs.

In fact, Meyerson points out it was American businesses and their representative groups (here’s looking at you, U.S. Chamber of Commerce) that opposed legislation in China aimed at strengthening worker rights. The goal was to improve working conditions and arrest the practice of withholding wages and forcing employees into working insanely long hours, but American business interests succeeded in pushing amendments to “make it more acceptable to foreign firms” - a fancy way of saying weakening the effect the bill would actually have on workers and the businesses that depend on keeping costs down. No wonder they’re such close buddies nowadays.

You can read the whole column, but Meyerson unleashes his most venomous critique in his closing:

Wal-Mart, which used to lock its night-shift stock clerks and janitors inside a number of its stores until the morning managers arrived, prefers production in Guangdong to manufacturing in the Midwest. Indeed, the director of purchasing for Wal-Mart is based in China.

As historian Nelson Lichtenstein and others have documented, Wal-Mart inspires in its managers an almost fanatical allegiance to the company’s cause. In Wal-Mart world, the provincialism (if not “idiocy") of rural life is fused with a brilliance in the art of low-cost, low-wage logistics to create a company that is both authoritarian in its inner workings and a friend of authoritarian regimes abroad. The butchers of Beijing could not have found any more compatible capitalists.

Beijing’s Favorite Capitalists [Washington Post]

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As the New York Times is reporting, a new study by Cornell University professor Kate Bronfenbrenner has found that employers threatened to close plants in 57 percent of union organizing drives, and threatened to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent.

Unfortunately, it now appears to be that several employers - many of which have had stable relationships with their employees for years - have begun to follow Wal-Mart’s lead and get far more aggressive with employee groups seeking to organize. Bronfenbrenner writes:

What distinguishes the current organizing climate from previous decades of employer opposition to unions? The primary difference is that the most intense and aggressive anti-union campaign strategies, the kind previously found only at employers like Wal-Mart, are no longer reserved for a select coterie of extreme anti-union employers.

The report, titled “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing,” is being released today by the Economic Policy Institute. From the report:

Overall, 12.4% of U.S. workers are represented by unions, a density far below what would be the case if all workers who wanted to belong to a union could freely do so. In fact, studies have shown that if workers’ preferences were realized, as much as 58% of the workforce would have union representation.

Of course, we know that one of the ways to rectify this would be federal legislation - the Employee Free Choice Act, perhaps??

For more information on the report, including the press release, fact sheet, and the report itself - click here.

Find the New York Times article, plus a video on how when it comes to unions Starbucks has made itself into the coffee drinker’s Wal-Mart, after the jump.

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Two outlets - Congressional Quarterly and AllGov.com - have picked up on our FEC story from last week - all of which stems from Wal-Mart’s activities last summer, when meetings were held warning store managers and department supervisors around the country that if Democrats won power in last year’s elections, they would likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies—including Wal-Mart.

Basically, Wal-Mart was telling its employees that if they voted Democratic, unionizing would lead to store closings, lost jobs and more bad things:

“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.

Following a Wall Street Journal piece that relied heavily on sources provided by Wal-Mart Watch, several groups (WMW included) filed complaints with the FEC, asking the commission to look into Wal-Mart’s election activities.

As we reported last week, that complaint ended badly with a deadlocked FEC and an eventual dismissal. Now, however, we can at least begin to piece together how the ruling unfolded (or the lack there of, unless you consider a “stalemate” as indicative of a ruling).

Six commissioners participated in the ruling, with three voting in favor of further investigation, and three against. Could they have voted down party lines, you ask? Surely not? Well, you’d be wrong - three Democrats favored investigating further while the three appointed Republicans said, “Screw it, it’s getting late, we’re heading for happy hour - let’s close the book on this horse.” A 3-3 vote ensued, and just like in baseball the tie went to the runner, with Wal-Mart running away from any official wrongdoing - although we will point out that the Republicans that Wal-Mart was nudging its employees towards didn’t actually win.

An excerpt from the FEC statement against Wal-Mart:

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PRESIDENT OBAMA REAFFIRMS SUPPORT FOR EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE

• Obama on his support of the Employee Free Choice Act [New Mexico Independent (N.M.)]
  President Obama said today at his town hall in Rio Rancho that he’d like to see the Employee Free Choice Act pass, but that compromise might need to happen on the details of the bill if it’s to pass the U.S. Senate.
  

• Live from Rio Rancho, it's President Obama [USA Today]
  A man asks about the "employee free choice act," which would help more unions form. Obama praises the contribution of unions to society, and worries about the decline in union membership. But he cites objections to the "free choice" act, including the fact that it does not assure secret balloting for formation of a union. Notes there aren't enough votes in the Senate to get the act passed, but says there may be room for compromise.
  

• Obama Says Union Bill Lacks Sufficient Senate Support [Wall Street Journal Blogs]
  Not surprisingly, unions praised the president’s remarks. “What a difference having a pro-working family president makes,” said Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern. “For hard-working families who suffered for eight long years under George Bush’s extreme antiworker policies, President Obama’s and Vice President Biden’s leadership on behalf of the middle class is a breath of long-needed fresh air.”
  

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Wal-Mart workers from across the nation are converging today on Capitol Hill for a National Organizing Meeting to brief Senators about wages, benefits and the Employee Free Choice Act. We have Wal-Mart Watch peeps down on the Hill, and will have more updates as the day goes on.

Wal-Mart Workers Holding Historic National Organizing Meeting [UFCW Release via EarthTimes]

WASHINGTON - (Business Wire) Walmart workers from across the nation are converging today on Capitol Hill for a National Organizing Meeting to brief Senators about wages, benefits and the Employee Free Choice Act. Nearly 100 Walmart workers from 17 states are participating in the event. As part of their campaign for a union voice on the job, they will urge lawmakers to level the playing field for working people by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

“I made the trip into Washington DC to stand with my fellow Walmart workers and to urge my Senators to pass the Employee Free Choice Act,” said Dominique Sloan a Dallas, Texas, Walmart worker. “We need change in this country. All you have to do is look at how all the money goes to CEOs. But when it comes to workers, it’s always the same, no health care or health care that’s too expensive and low wages. We need to change that.”

The National Organizing Committee is made up of Walmart workers from Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

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Multiple proposals are being pushed by pro-business groups in 13 states in response to a certain bill pending in Congress known as the Employee Free Choice Act.

With the successful passage of the Employee Free Choice Act still up in the air, business groups appear willing to take no chances. The individual pieces of legislation, such as a resolution proposed in Missouri, are generally geared towards requiring secret ballots in union elections instead of allowing workers to choose between elections or signing cards.

The measure resembles proposals being pushed by pro-business groups in 12 other states in response to a bill pending in Congress that would make it easier for employees to form unions.

Florida is another state with a bill on the table - the Florida proposal has been titled “Guaranteeing the Right to Vote by Secret Ballot.” Not everyone in the state is sold on its “guarantee,” however:

“The intent of the language is to mislead the voters, to make the voters think that they are voting in favor of protecting their own rights at that ballot box,” said Rep. Richard Steinberg, D-Miami Beach. “That is not what this is about.”

Both measures remain in their respective statehouses - the Florida Senate still has to consider the issue, while the Missouri proposal remains with the Missouri House, and its chances of passing the Senate during this legislative session appear slim.

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Workers at a North Miami Beach Wal-Mart Supercenter are hoping to make their store one of the first Wal-Marts in the United States to unionize. The Miami Herald is reporting that workers have gathered signed pro-union cards from 150 of the store’s 476 employees.

If a majority of workers were to vote to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union, Wal-Mart would have to negotiate a contract setting pay, work rules, complaint procedures, health insurance and other benefits for the workers.

The Miami store is the most impressive example of card-signing activity, the movement occurring despite the fact that the Employee Free Choice Act movement remains in neutral in Washington. It isn’t the only unionizing target, however, as the UFCW admitted the North Miami Beach store is only one of about 100 Wal-Mart stores it is working to organize in 17 states, according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

Meghan Scott, a Food and Commercial Workers spokesman in Washington, said the union increased its organizing efforts after the election of President Barack Obama and the reintroduction this year of federal legislation that would make it easier for workers to gain union representation. “We’ve seen a pretty significant uptick in calls from Wal-Mart workers across the country,” Scott said. “The workers just seem to be emboldened in a way that they have not been in the last few years.”

The Miami store is a continuation of a trend that began earlier this month, when the Wall Street Journal reported on organizing efforts in Texas and Illinois.

‘’If we vote and we get it [union certification], they can’t do nothing but go along with it,’’ (Miami employee) Cheryl Guzman said. ``That’s my hope and prayer.’’

Read more after the jump:

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Wal-Mart has agreed to revise a plan on a payroll cut involving 2,000 mid-level managers across its outlets in China after a trade union stepped in to mediate, state media is reporting. Here’s a quick recap of today’s stories. You can find our previous posts on the issues here and here.

Row at Wal-Mart China settled after unions step in [MarketWatch]

Wal-Mart China had planned to relocate about 2,000 mid-level managers at existing stores to new stores it planned to open, the China Daily reported in its online edition Friday, citing a senior official at the Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions.

The report said the workers union became involved after Wal-Mart employees reported that senior management announced the relocations under threat of demotion or dismissal, the report cited the federation’s Vice Chairman Wang Tongxin as saying.

Wal-Mart Bows to Union Pressure on China Restructuring [Wall Street Journal Blogs]

Wal-Mart (WMT) has made adjustments to its restructuring plans in China after objections from the state-backed All-China Federation of Trade Unions, state media reported today.

Last week, the company said it planned to trim management positions, a move that would have involved 1,400 (about 2.5%) of its employees in China. The affected employees would have faced pay cuts, relocation to other stores or possible job losses. This upset union leaders, who said their members hadn’t been consulted. (Under government pressure, in 2006 the famously union-resistant Wal-Mart allowed unions to form in China).

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As workers continue to write to us about their experiences with Wal-Mart, we’ll continue to highlight some of the best submissions of the week. Comments this week address employee dissatisfaction with computerized scheduling as well as calls for Wal-Mart to respect its employee’s “basic human rights.”

Our first story comes from a Wal-Mart worker in California who writes to us anonymously:

“I never believed the horror stories about Wal-Mart’s treatment of their employees until I was hired - with no other job options available - as a cake decorator in 2008. Since my hire date, I have witnessed people fired for making overtime, threatened for speaking about unions, and denied the ability to miss work because of medical disabilities. Wal-Mart discriminates, threatens, and denies employees their basic human rights the minute they clock in. This needs to change. The world’s largest publicly owned corporation needs to change its ways, pay its workers more, appreciate the diversity and intelligence and beauty of its employees and customers, and stop taking advantage of these people.”

A Wal-Mart worker from Texas writes to us anonymously about scheduling:

“My husband works for Walmart. I am raging mad right now because Walmart has a new scheduling policy that will make up a person’s hours randomly. Instead of working his original schedule, my husband is now working at erratic times and can no longer pick up our son from school everyday @ 3:30. In addition, they cut his hours down from 40 to 31. They wanted to cut them down to 19.  I hear about Walmart helping communities around the country, but what about helping their own employees? This is crazy. How do they think people will survive?”

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Chicago Alderman Howard Brookins is bracing for “a floor fight” on an amended redevelopment agreement he introduced Wednesday, which would open the door for Wal-Mart to build its second Chicago store. Last year, a similar request to build a supercenter was rejected by the planning and development commissioner, a fate Brookins hopes to make moot this year. The Chicago Sun-Times has the skinny:

Last year, then-Planning and Development Commissioner Arnold Randall rejected a request for administrative approval to build a 150,000 square-foot Wal-Mart supercenter on the site of the old Ryerson Steel plant at 83rd and Stewart. The developer responded by putting the property up for sale. Brookins’ proposal would strip the commissioner of the power to veto stores over 100,000 square feet.

So, Alderman Brookins is looking to get around commissioner approval by making it ultimately unnecessary - if the planning and development commissioner can’t veto a project, why run a development proposal by the administration in the first place? And Brookins’ reasoning for introducing the measure?

“I’m doing it because I can’t get any other movement any way else.”

Makes sense. In reality, there appears to be much more going on in the Windy City than a simple controversy over a new Wal-Mart supercenter. Chicago is bidding for the 2016 Olympics, and Mayor Daley and his administration seem to want to avoid tackling divisive issues this calendar year while the International Olympic Committee reviews the city’s bid.

“The timing is pretty bad. We’re trying to keep some peace with the unions. We’ve got an October deadline with the [International] Olympic Committee. I don’t think we want to show any problems here with the city and our workforce,” said Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), the mayor’s unofficial Council floor leader.

Regardless, earlier today Mayor Daley intimated that Alderman Brookins doesn’t have much of a chance for his proposal to go through anyway.

“This is not gonna fly. You know that. They don’t have enough votes,” Daley said.

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We reported earlier this week on Chinese workers protesting a Wal-Mart “job optimization” program that would have led to layoffs for many mid-level executive positions. In fact, managers included in the optimization program were actually to be given three options: demotion with reduced salary, relocation, or leaving the company with compensation.

Today, however, the China Daily is reporting that Wal-Mart has decided to backtrack on its optimization plan.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to adjust its plan to streamline staffing in China, and will keep positions and salaries unchanged for employees who don’t want to be reassigned to other locations, the China Daily reported Wednesday. The report, citing Chen Lu, a Wal-mart public relations official in China, said the adjustment to the plan came after a breakthrough in talks between the U.S. retailer and its Chinese union.

So THIS is why unions can be a beneficial tool for workers, eh??

The report did, however, go on to say that Wal-Mart will keep pushing forward its program to redeploy workers.

Wal-Mart reportedly to ease up on China staff streamlining plan [MarketWatch]

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In China, Wal-Mart’s “job optimization” program was just a fancy way of saying you’re fired. That is, until the country’s government-run trade union stepped in.

Earlier this month, Wal-Mart announced it could need to slash some mid-level executive positions in an effort to adapt to “the changeable market situation.” At the time, however, company officials refused to say how many people would lose their jobs. The plan that was ultimately unveiled was dubbed the retailer’s “job optimization and regrouping” program, aimed at relocating some mid-management staff to similar posts in new stores.

Angry staff affected by the plan were not buying it, however, and labeled the program as a “de facto layoff plan.” In fact, managers included in the optimization program were actually given three options: demotion with reduced salary, relocation, or leaving the company with compensation - with those choices, Wal-Mart was obviously aiming to trim staff.

“I came to work for Wal-Mart in my 20s. I have been always working hard and never made any major mistakes. I am now pushing 40. If I have to leave Wal-Mart, I really don’t know where to find another job.” said a department manager at Wal-Mart’s Shekou store in Shenzhen.

The optimization program has been thwarted for now, however, as the country’s government-run trade union stepped in and blocked the restructuring. That decision came after over 50 staff protested the plan at Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China.

“Three mid-level executives came to my office this morning and told me the plan was shelved and they have resumed their work,” Xinhua news agency quoted Yang Fengzhi, a union official in northeast China, as saying. The managers in Jilin province, who earlier had been told they would be laid off, were asked to return to work after the union stepped in, the report said.

See, but that’s the thing. China is what it is, yet for all we complain about that country’s methods of doing things, workers there can still band together to fight for their jobs. Yet here in the land of the free, Wal-Mart workers attempting to flex their muscles will find themselves quickly unemployed.

What do you think? Does it make sense that workers in China have more rights that those right here at home?

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Yesterday, Sen. Michael Bennet - the junior Democratic Senator from Colorado - again declined to take a position on the Employee Free Choice Act, even though most of his Senate colleagues have already done so. Bennet, appointed to the Senate after Ken Salazar’s nomination for the Secretary of the Interior, has been reluctant to support EFCA because of pressure from local and national business leaders.

After the latest inquiry into his position, Sen. Bennet is trying to position himself in the center by saying:

“I’m in a much better position to be helpful to a constructive conversation by not having taken a position on the existing language in the legislation than I would be if I had.”

But straddling the fence is not always the safest political position, and he’s already taking heat for refusing to make up his mind. Scott Newkirk, of Fort Collins, CO was quoted by Denver’s ABC-7 News:

“I can’t believe how bad he waffled on that,” Newkirk said. “What we’ve got here is someone who may or may not be willing to make tough choices. I really hope he faces a primary challenge.”

We agree that in the U.S. Senate, tough choices must be made. Sen. Bennet is facing reelection in 2010, and is no doubt worried about his political career. But waffling on Employee Free Choice isn’t going to help persuade any workers to come out to polls a couple Novembers from now.

Senator Bennet, it’s time to take a stand with Wal-Mart workers - and workers everywhere - on the right side of history.

Bennet stays mum on union-vote issue [Denver Post]:

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on Wednesday declined once again to take a position on a labor-business battle royale over legislation that could make it easier for workers to organize.

“Everywhere I go, from the labor side I hear: ‘This is the most important issue to us.’ From the business community I hear: ‘Stopping this is the most important issue to us,’ “Bennet said during a meeting with The Denver Post editorial board.

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Posted by Brendan Gaffney | Permalink

Tags: labor, employee free choice act, union, efca, legislation, colorado