0 comments

---

The way they fight them tooth and nail, you’d think Wal-Mart believes its eventual downfall could come at the hands of unions. But could there be another force at work, something evil that lives deep within the bowels of our planet, a nightmare that keeps Wal-Mart up at night clutching its pillows and sweating in its cheap Sam’s Club bed?

Expensive oil?

Admit it...you thought I was going the science fiction route. A vicious Balrog from Lord of the Rings that lives beneath the Earth’s crust and breathes fire. I guess you could make the leap to oil - it too has a black heart and is flammable, after all. And in his new book $20 Per Gallon, Christopher Steiner imagines an everyday world in which the price of gasoline (and oil) continues to rise (and rise...and rise some more), and the immediate impact that would have on our lives. The Oregonian has a sample:

$6/gallon: We will finally kill the SUV, allowing Los Angeles to emerge from smog and saving 15,600 lives a year from deadly auto crashes, since people will be driving far less. At the same time, revenues from gas taxes will plunge, causing roads and bridges to crumble, leading to higher tolls.
$14: “Wal-Mart killed by high cost of global transport. Mom-and-pop retailers return to Main Street. U.S. Factories revive.” The bad? “With driving cut in half and asphalt costs soaring, even toll roads shut down.”
$20: Mass biking and transit, including the nationwide high-speed rail network that will supposedly happen at $18 a gallon. Plus, 90 percent of Americans will live in cities. “The bad,” according to Steiner’s prediction is nuclear power will power everything, including cargo ships and polyester will be “too expensive for clothes.”

Steiner notes that as oil and gas prices rise, business models like Wal-Mart’s (heavy on cheap overseas imports, reliant on a driving/mobile consumer) will become progressively more unsustainable. Could we see companies like Wal-Mart lobbying against raising the Federal gas tax or a tax on miles driven? Could future rises in costs be behind Wal-Mart’s attempts to move into more urban areas? Check out an interview with Steiner on Michigan NPR after the jump, and then share your thoughts.

Read the rest of this story ...

0 comments

---

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus acknowledges he sees in the retiring Justice David Souter a jurist with a “moderate or restrained record” – one which plaintiffs’ lawyers and unions would hope to avoid in a replacement. Earlier today President Obama announced his nominee to replace Justice Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court – Sonia Sotomayor, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – and the question now: Is this a good thing for businesses like Wal-Mart?

The primary reason for asking this question at this time is because there exists the very real possibility that at some point in the relatively near future, Wal-Mart’s lawyers will be defending their client before the very Court that Judge Sotomayor is being nominated to.

Just two months ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals re-heard en banc arguments in the well-traveled Dukes v. Wal-Mart sex discrimination case – plaintiffs are hoping the full court will affirm a previous Ninth Circuit decision that upheld the lawsuit’s ability to proceed as a class action. If that happens, Wal-Mart will have two options – accept the decision and proceed to trial, or appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Should Wal-Mart come out on the short end of the Ninth Circuit and find itself in front of the Supreme Court, Sotomayor could be the newest of the nine justices the company will have to convince in order to have Dukes’ class action status removed. Judge Sotomayor’s voting record is now being parsed, and certainly as the vetting process moves forward, we’ll learn more about what kind of effect she could have on a potential Dukes decision. Most view her record as decidedly moderate, though she has implied in the past that the gender and ethnicity of judges should and does influence their judicial decision-making.

As a woman and a minority, could this be a bad omen for Wal-Mart? We’ll see...until then, however, we’ll have to make do with some of her career highlights, which you can find after the jump…

Read the rest of this story ...

0 comments

---

This week we’ve continued to hear from workers who are frustrated with their jobs at Wal-Mart. As always, we are amazed by the sheer quantity and variety that we get on a day-to-day basis. Regardless of what the mainstream media and Wal-Mart spokesmen say about the company, you can always come to this website to hear the real stories from the workers who write us.

The following comments - both from employees and non-employees - address expensive health care, wages, unions, food donations, doctor’s notes, and the lack of air conditioning—it was enough to make two workers quit this week.

A.M. from Indiana writes to us about wage discrimination and expensive health care:

In our store you only have a chance at a promotion if you kiss up to the managers. Moreover, the variance in the pay rates for the same job codes ranges about three dollars. Tell me how this is fair! Not to mention the health care issues, how can I afford daily meds for a chronic condition when my premiums are so high and my pay is so low? When I get to the pharmacy, I find that 80 percent of my prescriptions are not covered.

An anonymous worker from Pennsylvania describes an uncomfortable anti-union meeting:

I am disgusted with myself and the way in which my life has turned out since I have been employed with Wal-Mart for five years. I recently became a salaried manager because I needed the money. After four years at Wal-Mart, I had not yet worked my way up to what I had made at my previous job - a fast food franchise. You must understand, I never wanted to work for this company, but the truth is that when you are poor, you have no skills, and you have no college education, it is difficult to find a job that pays well. I expected to be poorly paid for a while. However, I had high expectation for myself and expected to move quickly through the management ranks.

Before starting with the company, I had read lots of anti-Wal-mart propaganda. I knew there were a ridiculously small number of women managers compared to males - especially when I factoring in how many more women work at Wal-Mart. I expected those challenges and I embraced them. Unfortunately, I overcame them without ever doing anything to ensure that no other deserving woman would be held back.

Read the rest of this story ...

0 comments

---

Yesterday, at an event in New Mexico, President Obama again reaffirmed his support for the Employee Free Choice Act. The New Mexico Independent notes that Obama also signaled that a compromise might be necessary to get the bill through the Senate.

Nonetheless, it’s reassuring to know that President Obama stands with Wal-Mart workers in their struggle for better jobs

0 comments

---

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.”
  

Read the rest of this story ...

32 comments

---

Yesterday, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) became the first Senate Democrat to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act. But when later allowed to elaborate, she left the door open for her to eventually get on board a revised version of the legislation.

It looked bleak early on - as the Washington Post reported, Senator Lincoln didn’t mince words when stating whether she still supported the Employee Free Choice Act legislation that she had voted for back in 2007:

“I cannot support that bill,” Lincoln told the club, one attendee recounted to Arkansas Business. “Cannot support that bill in its current form. Cannot support and will not support moving it forward in its current form.”

But as the day moved forward, Senator Lincoln did soften her stance - if only a bit - after listing several issues she hoped to tackle in 2009:

“Even though the Employee Free Choice Act is not on this priority list, it is receiving a lot of attention in the news and is the focus of many of my conversations with constituents on both sides of the issue. I consider both the labor and the business communities to be my friends. However, now that we need all hands on deck, including business and labor, to get our economy moving again, this issue is dividing us...I am stating today that I cannot support Employee Free Choice Act in its current form and I can’t support efforts to bring it to Senate consideration in its current form. I will consider alternatives that have the support of both business and labor but my pledge today is to focus my full attention on the priorities I have mentioned that affect every working family in Arkansas.”

Why is Senator Lincoln’s vote so important? Her defection would make it increasingly difficult for supporters of the bill to get the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and help it to move forward under Senate rules. Not surprisingly, Lincoln’s shift towards the right - she has also recently made news for teaming with Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) to push a provision that would slash the controversial estate tax rate (or “death tax” if you’re a Republican or just a pessimist) - just happens to come as she looks towards a 2010 reelection bid in Arkansas, Wal-Mart’s home state. And we all know what Wal-Mart thinks of EFCA.

Read the rest of this story ...

0 comments

---

In recent weeks we’ve seen more and more letters and columns in newspapers coast-to-coast speaking out in favor of Employee Free Choice to revitalize America’s middle class. They all share one common theme: America’s workers have gotten the short end of the stick the last few decades and it’s time for a change. Interestingly, some small business owners are also getting in on the act: one from increasingly pro-worker Colorado pulls data from the Small Business Administration showing that small businesses are less likely to go bankrupt in states with higher unionization. Letter and column-writing campaigns from sectors as diverse as workers, small businesses, academics and others show that a groundswell of popular support exists for leveling the playing field.

Terri Monley of Gate City Moving company in Denver writes in the Denver Post:

Small Business Administration data show that small businesses are less likely to go bankrupt in states with higher unionization, and that’s a big reason why I support the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s a simple formula for me and my business: When more workers have better jobs with higher wages, then more money is going into the local economy. That’s more money that will go to my business, and more money that I will then spend with other small businesses in Colorado.

Read the rest of this story ...

58 comments

---

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) announced yesterday that he would not be supporting the Employee Free Choice Act. In actuality his decision will not only affect the bill itself, but it could first and foremost affect the ability of Congress to even vote on it, because without his vote Conservatives could filibuster the poor thing to death.

When legislation like the Free Choice Act is introduced in the Senate - assuming it makes it to the floor - there eventually takes place debate between Senators as to whether the legislation should be passed. This debate can go on indefinitely, most commonly referred to as a filibuster and taking the form of an exceptionally long speech (as in one lasting for a day or days, or a series of such speeches) to prevent the legislation from moving forward...and that, my friends, is where Senator Specter would come in. Sixty votes are needed in the Senate to enact what is called cloture - basically this sets a deadline for debate to end, after which a final vote is made. Senate Democrats currently have enough votes to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, but without Specter, there appears to be only 59 Senators that would vote for cloture - one fewer than needed to end debate and take the legislation to a final vote. Senator Specter announced his decision yesterday on the Senate floor:

The problems of the recession make this a particularly bad time to enact Employees Free Choice legislation. Employers understandably complain that adding a burden would result in further job losses. If efforts are unsuccessful to give Labor sufficient bargaining power through amendments to the NLRA, then I would be willing to reconsider Employees’ Free Choice legislation when the economy returns to normalcy.

Basically, the Senator had big business screaming at him from one shoulder, and labor from the other...and business (and Conservatives) won. Some, however, noted that while he decided not to support the bill this time, he did identify a need to reform labor law as it currently stands.

Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education and Labor Committee, said, “It’s disappointing that Senator Specter feels he cannot support the Employee Free Choice Act in its current form, but I welcome his recognition of the urgent need for labor law reform...I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to find the best way to move forward with this important legislation.”

Republican opposes US labor bill, may doom measure [Reuters]

Read the rest of this story ...

33 comments

---

If there was ever a example of why we need the Employee Free Choice Act, its the saga of Wal-Mart workers in Jacksonville, Texas.

In February 2000, workers at a Wal-Mart meat department in Jacksonville, TX voted to form a union by 7-3 margin. Instead of honoring the vote and opening negotiations with UFCW, Wal-Mart took the standard company option: it closed all in-store butcher departments in favor of pre-packaged meats. If Wal-Mart’s union-busting reputation was ever in question, this case erased any doubt years ago.

Unfortunately for the workers, the National Labor Relations Board upheld Wal-Mart’s decision to close the department. Occupational Health and Safety Magazine wrote on the NLRB decision: “Because of the conversion, the meat department had become an inappropriate bargaining unit, meaning Wal-Mart had no general duty to bargain with the UFCW.”

Upon appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, UFCW was faced with a test they simply could not pass. The legally appropriate ‘community-of-interest test’ allowed a unanimous three-judge appellate panel to uphold Wal-Mart’s right to eliminate butcher departments since they had no particularly special skills; citing the incident as analogous to a typical closing, effectively cutting butchers out of the picture for good. Although Wal-Mart could avoid recognizing the union, it still had to “negotiate over effects of the new meat program on the workers.” Well these negotiations took nine years. Now only one of the original 12 employees still works at the store. One employee died during the delay and the others moved on to other jobs. “Nine years is a long time,” said UFCW spokesman Johnny Rodriguez. 

Read the rest of this story ...

22 comments

---

The speak out stories from Wal-Mart workers keep rolling in. It’s no secret that Wal-Mart often abuses its workers basic labor rights, but in the heat of the EFCA battle, we’ve heard rumors about an uptick in union-busting at Wal-Mart stores.

We asked the employees we talk with what they’ve heard from managers about unions lately, and here’s some of what we heard back:

From Michael Brockway -

On Monday, February 16, 2009, in an email to Wal-Mart’s Ethics Helpline, I mentioned my support of unions. I serve as a Human Rights Commissioner for the City of Waterloo, Iowa and worked in the Cedar Falls, Iowa, Wal-Mart #0753. I had previously expressed concerns about worker safety, racial profiling of customers, and discrimination against employees belonging to legally protected classes. I had also previously spoken out in start-up meetings about Wal-Mart’s attempt to persuade employees that voting for Barack Obama would endanger their jobs because of the Employee Free Choice Act. On Friday, February 27, 2009, I was terminated for policy violations that were far less severe than the violations of other employees in my store.

From Carolyn Johansen -

I worked for Wal-Mart from 2000 to 2003. Union was a dirty word in the store. Anti-union propaganda was preached periodically. GOD help those who work there now. Wal-Mart has lousy pay and management has no comprehension of what “family emergency” means. While I was working for Wal-Mart, they tried to write-up a woman because she left before the end of her shift. She left because her house was on fire! She refused to sign the write-up and got in trouble for that. Her burnt house made it to the front page of the local paper so it was no secret to management.

Read the rest of this story ...

22 comments

---

With Democratic Rep. George Miller looking to officially roll out the Employee Free Choice Act today in Congress, America’s workers are physically bringing their message of the need for better wages, health care, and overall treatment to the heart of the Washington establishment. Yesterday under warm breezes and a sunny sky, hundreds of SEIU members rallied in front of some of EFCA’s most notorious opponents: the Retail Industry Lobbying Association, the American Chamber of Commerce, and a banking association meeting. Then, they marched to Lafayette Square—just a few yards from the White House—where SEIU President Andy Stern made it clear that workers and all Americans who look to Employee Free Choice as a way to restore America’s middle class will not desist in their struggle. Let the festivities begin.

The original Politico article reporting on the rally is below: 

You’ve probably seen the ads and heard the rhetoric on the House and Senate floor, but now the protests over the Employee Free Choice Act are under way.

A spokeswoman for the Service Employees International Union says the organization has dispatched 300 labor union members to protest outside the offices of the Chamber of Commerce, a leading business group that has been leading the fight against the bill, which opponents call the card check legislation.

“It’s startling how huge a lobbying machine corporations have deployed against change that would help workers gain a greater voice at a time when our country and our economy so desperately need it,” said Jeffrey Cappella, an SEIU spokesman.

Read the rest of this story ...

1 comments

---

In the State of Washington, proposed legislation called the Worker Privacy Act would give workers the option of refusing to attend mandatory meetings where employers tell their side on issues of personal conscience, including politics or unionizing. Actually, the bill being considered in both the Washington House and Senate also mentions religion and charitable giving as protected issues, but politics and unionization are the ones getting all the media love. Yesterday, the Washington State Labor Council pointed out the following in arguing in favor of the bill to the House Labor and Commerce committee:

Under current law, companies can force their employees to attend such meetings to discourage union organizing or to press political views, as Wal-Mart did last year when it urged employees to vote against Barack Obama and Democrats.

Indeed, Wal-Mart Watch was intimately involved with the development of an August 2008 story in the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story of Wal-Mart’s “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.”

The actions by Wal-Mart—the nation’s largest private employer—reflect a growing concern among big business that a reinvigorated labor movement could reverse years of declining union membership. That could lead to higher payroll and health costs for companies already being hurt by rising fuel and commodities costs and the tough economic climate.

The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don’t specifically tell attendees how to vote in November’s election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

In addition to those stories in the WSJ piece, some of the reports Wal-Mart Watch received were even more egregious - in one example, a worker said they were shown a slide that said “Obama = union” while being told why unions were bad. The Washington legislation would allow workers to elect not to attend such gatherings, without fear of reprisal.

Read the rest of this story ...

25 comments

---

Labor officials are praising ol’ President Obama’s first signed piece of legislation.

“We are heartened that this legislation was made a top priority of the new Congress and administration, because it demonstrates a return to the common-sense values of hard-working Americans,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a written statement.

The legislation, titled the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, focuses on Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., [550 U.S. 618 (2007)], a Supreme Court decision holding that regardless of when a worker discovers a pay disparity, any legal action needs to be filed within 180 days of the initial decision to pay the worker less. For Lilly Ledbetter, an employee at Goodyear Tire and Rubber for over 19 years, she didn’t realize she was getting a lower salary and lower pay raises then her male counterparts until after she left the company - and only then because an anonymous note was left in her mailbox.

The court said Ledbetter couldn’t sue under the 1964 Civil Rights Act because the alleged discrimination occurred more than 180 days before she filed her claim. The law signed today restarts the clock for bringing claims each time a worker’s job is affected by a discriminatory act. In Ledbetter’s case, that would be each time she receives a pay check.

Corporate labor lawyer Lawrence Lorber (say that 3 times fast) pointed out that the Lilly Ledbetter Act may be just a prelude to what Labor is really interested in - passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to form unions.

“The Ledbetter bill is the lowest-hanging fruit of all the items on labor’s agenda,” Lorber said. “The victory is not necessarily a harbinger of what will happen on Employee Free Choice, which could be World War Four between labor and business.”

You can read President Obama’s statement on the legislation, and check out Lilly Ledbetter’s Obama campaign ad here…

Obama Signs Lilly Ledbetter Act [Washington Post]

Read the rest of this story ...

3 comments

---

Another one bites the dust: 150 associates in Hull, Quebec are the most recent Wal-Mart workers to unionize.

Congrats to UFCW and Wal-Mart’s Canadian Workforce. The pace at which stores are being unionized now entirely changes the ballgame. Over the past few years, Wal-Mart has been able to shut down a few unionized stores here and there with little consqequence other than bad press. But with stores becoming more rapidly unionized, this won’t be so easy. At a minimum, if Wal-Mart does choose to shutter every unionized store, it’s going to take a major bite of it’s Canadian business and growth plan for the future.

Another Wal-Mart unionized in Quebec [UFCW Press Release]:

HULL, QUE., NEWS RELEASE--(Marketwire - Dec. 18, 2008) -

Over 150 Wal-Mart workers in Hull, Que., have become the ninth group of Canadian “associates” to join the country’s largest private-sector union after a Dec. 17 decision by the Quebec Labour Board awarded bargaining rights for the Hull location to the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW Canada).

“After nine times, the message coming from Wal-Mart workers in Canada to Wal-Mart executives in Bentonville, Arkansas, couldn’t be louder or clearer: Canadian Wal-Mart workers want to be union members,” says UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley.

Read the rest of this story ...

14 comments

---

We’ve covered Wal-Mart’s wage and hour (and overtime) issues many times over, culminating with last week’s $54 million settlement in Minnesota. We all get that Wal-Mart would prefer its employees work through breaks. And we certainly know that when it comes to paying employees for overtime, well, Wal-Mart would prefer that be optional.

California wage laws are, not surprisingly, fairly strict. And now, with that state facing a financial shortfall, the LA Times is reporting that business groups and GOP lawmakers are using wage and hour law as a bargaining chip in negotiations over how to fix a $14.8-billion hole in the state budget. The argument is that state laws like those in California - the ones mandating breaks for workers working at least 6 hours in succession, and requiring an employer to pay time-and-a-half once a worker has worked more than 8 hours in day - are expensive for employers to follow and force them to flee the state for friendlier confines. Places where breaks are voluntary [for the employer] and overtime exists only in a fantasy dreamland.

Not surprisingly, California Democrats and labor officials in the state disagree.

Employers’ latest efforts to tie both the meal break and overtime issue to contentious budget negotiations are aimed at reversing basic worker rights, said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation.

“It’s about trying to help Wal-Mart and other big corporations get away from the long-established understanding that people should get a meal break at work” or be paid extra for extra hours, Pulasksi said.

“This has nothing to do with the budget or stimulating the economy,” said Barry Broad, a lobbyist for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and other labor unions. “It doesn’t help the economy to lower 20 million people’s wages during a recession.”

It has been suggested that if state lawmakers can’t come to a consensus and close out these budget negotiations, a state government shutdown in the spring is a distinct possibility.

Overtime pay, rest breaks become bargaining chips in state budget crisis [LA Times]

Read the rest of this story ...

59 comments

---

After four years of legal wrangling, Wal-Mart workers in Weyburn, Saskatchewan were granted union status today, according to the UFCW local. Congrats to all the workers involved, and good luck to the other two Saskatchewan stores that have applications before the labor board.

Wal-Mart’s instinct will undoubtedly be to shut the store down, as it quickly did in Jonquiere and Gatineau. But can the company continue its aggressive growth plans in Canada if its forced to regularly shut down stores and take on the negative publicity that comes with it?

Wal-Mart Workers in Canadian Store Are Granted Union Status [Bloomberg News]:

Workers at a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlet in Canada were allowed to be represented by a union after more than four years of legal challenges by the retailer, the United Food and Commercial Workers said.

The Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board granted union certification to workers at a store in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, the union said in a statement today. The union already represents workers at three of the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer’s locations in Quebec. Applications for unionization of two others in Saskatchewan are before the labor board.

Wal-Mart in Weyburn certified as UFCW Canada unionized store [UFCW Press Release]:

A Wal-Mart store in Weyburn, Saskatchewan has been granted union certification by the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board (SLRB) after years of Wal-Mart legal wrangling and delays, including two Wal-Mart applications to the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn the process.

“Justice has finally arrived for these Weyburn workers, in spite of Wal-Mart’s endless attempts to thwart the workers from exercising their constitutional right to have a union,” says Wayne Hanley, the National President of UFCW Canada.

Read the rest of this story ...

32 comments

---

Check out this week’s issue of the Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials – a compilation of Wal-Mart news from across the country and beyond.

This week’s issue begins with a Bloomberg report of Wal-Mart being placed on a list of most controversial companies. Also named - the company responsible for producing melamine-tainted milk in China. The list includes companies criticized for producing negative impacts on communities, health, and the environment, and was based on a study by RepRisk, a consulting firm that analyzes companies’ exposure to controversial issues and news.

You’ll also find stories from BusinessWeek and the Financial Times on how corporate giants like Wal-Mart are gearing up to battle potential pro-labor legislation in 2009. With President-Elect Barack Obama and the Democrats taking over next year, retailers are bracing to fight the Employee Free Choice Act – or EFCA – which could make it easier to organize unions in the workplace.

In addition to EFCA, you’ll find stories on Wal-Mart and the economy. And from the legal front, read about a $19 million discrimination lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart and Pepsi in West Virginia. Plus, in the world of product safety, read more about questions raised by the controversial chemical BPA, as well how Wal-Mart has been selling lead-tainted face paint for kids…a no-no anytime, and especially around Halloween.

And finally, check out our “Stateside” and “Wal-Mart International” sections to find out what’s going on with Wal-Mart around the country and across the globe. Chicago city aldermen have a wish list for an Obama presidency; the fight continues over whether Wal-Mart can build near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia; and towns in California and Nevada deny Wal-Mart the ability to sell alcohol on its store shelves.

Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials [November 12, 2008]

5 comments

---

BloggingStock’s Brian White doesn’t always share our viewpoint on Wal-Mart, but this week’s “Wal-Mart Weekly” column is particularly interesting. It focuses entirely on the closing of the Tire & Lube Express in Gatineau, Quebec.

It’s a good column, and not just because it gets in a few zings at Wal-Mart. It’s one of the first pieces we’ve seen that begins to take a real look at Wal-Mart’s repeated decisions to close stores rather than deal with unions and union contracts, and asks important questions from a business perspective. Is this a good policy for Wal-Mart as a company? Is the repeated antagonism of workers who unionize going to hurt Wal-Mart’s growth potential in countries like Canada and China - where unions are more powerful and prevalent? And more fundamentally - is Wal-Mart’s bare-bones-wage model really a sustainable and profitable business plan in an economy where living costs are skyrocketing?

If you’ve got time, read the whole thing: 

The Wal-Mart Weekly: Is closing up a unionized shop the best strategy? [BloggingStocks]

This week, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) closed the first shop in North America that had been completely unionized. Does this signal anything to other Wal-Mart locations that form a collective bargaining organization? Sure: form one and the retailer would rather see the operation shut down entirely instead of having employees with any kind of power.

That may sound harsh, but it has to be the feeling around a Wal-Mart tire and lube shop in Gatineau, Quebec, which was literally closed due to its unionization last week. What better a way to leave consumers in the lurch than to close up shop on something that brings in revenue even if its employees decide to stray from Wal-Mart’s “non-union” stance in its retail locations.
Was the closing really the best answer?

With the Gatineau location in Canada the first official Wal-Mart location with an actual union contract in place, Wal-Mart’s response could be seen as severe. Was the global retailer trying to get a message out to any other Wal-Mart location in North America—“unionize and we will shut your doors?” If so, that’s no way to run a business, right? Is Wal-Mart so afraid of unions in its stores that it would rather shut them down (or pieces of them) instead of continuing to operate?

Lisette Wallingford, a frustrated customer of the Gatineau shop, expressed her disappointment: “They told me to come back today because my tires were coming in ... I think I’ll go to Canadian Tire because I can count on them.” There’s all we need to know: a frustrated customer. Wal-Mart was at least kind enough to direct customers late last week to other Gatineau-area Wal-Mart locations, with no mentioning that the closed location was due to unionization. Nice.

Read the rest of this story ...

0 comments

---

AP ran a story this weekend about Wal-Mart’s expansion into China’s hinterlands. The story reveals how in China, Wal-Mart is being forced to change how it does business.

First, it has welcomed Chinese organized labor into their stores to represent its workers. Wal-Mart’s opposition to unions in North America is so strong that just last week Wal-Mart chose to close a Tire and Lube Express in Quebec rather than accept a union contract in that shop.

Second, it is being forced to grow faster in China than the infrastructure it needs for support is developing. As Emek Basker, a University of Missouri economics professor points out in the piece, Wal-Mart had a conscious policy in the United States to only open stores that were within a day’s drive of a distribution center. Facing pressure from French giant, Carrefour, and possibly the demands of the Chinese government, Wal-Mart is being forced to abandon that policy in China.  In addition to a less convenient distribution network, add a less developed Chinese infrastructure of highways.  Now pile on top greater pressure to localize store purchases and that gives you the third way Wal-Mart has been forced to do things differently in China:­ buy local.

As Dean Xu, professor of strategy and international business at the University of Hong Kong, points out in the article, Wal-Mart will have to source many goods from local suppliers, potentially raising quality issues. “If there is one incident, it can ruin your company’s reputation,” Xu said.

And we know that Wal-Mart’s inability to “go local” is part of the reason it failed in South Korea and Germany and is performing poorly in Japan.

China is so much larger than any of those three countries and therefore the problems associated with going local are larger too.  If Wal-Mart succeeds (and it’s a very big “if” - the last we heard, Wal-Mart China still wasn’t profitable), it will become a very different from what we see today. And it certainly won’t look anything like company that Sam Walton passed down to his children.

3 comments

---

Wal-Mart earned $31 billion in profit last year, but repeatedly refuses to raise wages for its lowest-paid employees. When workers at a Tire and Lube Express in Canada voted to unionize in hopes of raising their wages and securing better benefits, Wal-Mart responded in the same way it has before: it shut the shop down. Such actions have been challenged before; hopefully these workers will be able to find justice.

Wal-Mart Closes Quebec Tire Center After Labor Accord (Update1) [Bloomberg News]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, said it closed a unionized Quebec tire and lubrication shop because of costs tied to the first labor agreement imposed at any of its North American locations.

The closing is effective immediately because it would have raised operating costs by at least 30 percent and triggered “dramatic’’ price increases on products, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer said today in a statement. The Quebec Labour Relations Board imposed the three-year labor contract in August after the union and company failed to reach an agreement.

“The union contract that was imposed is simply unworkable,’’ Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Andrew Pelletier said in a telephone interview.

Wal-Mart rose $1.89, or 3.8 percent, to $51.94 at 1:05 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Under the contract, wages would have increased by a third, or more than 10 times the average hourly rate of Quebec companies this year, the company said in the statement. Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express’s six employees in Gatineau won’t be fired and will be offered jobs at other regional shops.

Read the rest of this story ...