Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win

[paleryder]

Now I know why I hate that Wal-Mart smilie so much. It's a Republican grin.


:JapA003:


Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win
By ANN ZIMMERMAN and KRIS MAHER
August 1, 2008; Page A1

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is 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.


In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.
[Chart]

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.

"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.

"If anyone representing Wal-Mart gave the impression we were telling associates how to vote, they were wrong and acting without approval," said David Tovar, Wal-Mart spokesman. Mr. Tovar acknowledged that the meetings were taking place for store managers and supervisors nationwide.

More:

WallStreetJournal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121755649066303381.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news)

[krisinluck]

Unionizing would be the best thing to ever happen to a Walmart employee.

[krisinluck]

Interesting article all around.On June 30 the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Wal-Mart illegally fired an employee in Kingman, Ariz., who supported the UFCW and illegally threatened to freeze merit-pay increases if employees voted for union representation. The decision came eight years after the organizing campaign failed, and four years after the case was originally heard.Business groups say they're the underdogs since they will be outspent by unions by a wide margin. Labor has pledged to spend $300 million on the election and securing passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, compared with under $100 million by business groups, according to Steven Law, chief legal officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber's strategy is to focus on the Senate, where labor needs eight more supporters of the legislation to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.Well, it would be nice to see big business be the underdog for a change. The United Food and Commercial Workers was successful in organizing only one group of Wal-Mart workers -- a small number of butchers in East Texas in early 2000. Several weeks later, the company phased out butchers in all of its stores and began stocking prepackaged meat. When a store in Canada voted to unionize several years ago, the company closed the store, saying it had been unprofitable for years.

Labor has fought back with a campaign to portray Wal-Mart as treating its workers poorly. The UFCW helped employees file a series of complaints about the company's overtime, health-care and other policies with the National Labor Relations Board. Dozens of class-action lawsuits were filed on behalf of workers, many of which are still winding their way through the courts.They do have a strong history of treating their employees like crap. I've never talked to anyone who has worked at either Walmart in this general area who was glowing and gushing over it; it's a last ditch job.

Which explains why the employees are sullen and morose, too.

(All I want for Christmas is a Target nearer than 60 miles from home.)

[zeldas]

Sounds like they are saying if you vote democratic you could be looking for a job.

But Naw, they are not telling anybody how to vote. :i-roller:

[Doofy]

We had a union for less than a year.

It was quite hilarious.

Before the union became official management laid off a bunch of people. The employees that were borderline. They didn't want to be stuck with keeping them forever under a union.

Of course these were the people that screamed loudest for a union as they knew they wouldn't get anywhere on merit.

So bringing in a union cost them their jobs.

Next management brought in a wage freeze, at that time the economy was in the toilet and we were battling just to stay afloat.

The employees screamed you can't do that we've got a union.

Management told them we bid to get work, if labour costs put us out of the market, we will end up laying you off and sending you home.

So it soon became very obvious the only thing they had gained from their union was union dues.

It was then voted out, and its never been brought forward again.

The only thing more mind boggling than a union, is a government union.

Right now under a conservative government we've got companies clamouring to start here. Employees have incredible power as the good ones can pick and choose where they want to work. Employers are paying through the nose to keep good employees, but its a good deal as they are not stuck with the garbage.

[krisinluck]

There are scumbags on both sides, but when unions work as they were meant to, they work well.

I don't care much for the idea that being in a union means you can piss off on the clock and your job is safe; that's bullshit. I also think that in many cases those who are unionized tend to make way more money per hour than they should; I remember back in the early 80s when the Albuquerque supermarkets were still union (might still be, but I doubt it) those cashiers were making like $15 an hour. WTF? To stand there and punch in prices and take money and give change? Give me a break!

That said, the local grocery store here pays $7 an hour to their cashiers. Unless they have a full 40 a week (and not one second of OT is ever, ever allowed unless they are a salaried store or department manager) there are no benefits. They don't even have a holiday party for the staff of their three stores.

Seems to me there must be some kind of middle to this road.

[mivona]

I think the downside to unions is when members don't get involved. I see it in my union - members don't get involved, and then the more strident members push forward with demands that are not sensitive to the well-being of the business as a whole. A union has to be mindful of what is fair to the business as well as fair to the employees. Of course, some things are not negotiable, such as equal pay and safe working conditions, but going to huge pay increases is just not worth it if the business is not making huge profits.

Having said all that, I absolutely think there is a place for unions to act as a collective voice on things like safety, and ensuring that the pay reflects the contribution of the employees to the well-being of the organisation.

It is with unions that workers in local government here have 36 hour weeks, 5 weeks annual leave, sick pay, sick dependents leave, parental leave (up to 9 months with at least half pay for women and 2 weeks full pay for men), flexi-time, etc.

[Doofy]

If something is unsafe I'm going to the OHC. They can immediately shut the job site down and levy fines up to 200 thousand.

Unless things are very different in the US and England, unions haven't been needed for safety in decades.

Kris if all that person can get is a job for $7.00, is it the businesses fault?

Or should it be a wake up call to that person?

[mivona]

While workers can go direct to the Health and Safety Executive, they are incredibly overworked, and the unions have a very effective monitoring role in sorting out safety issues before they escalate.

[littleesp]

There are scumbags on both sides, but when unions work as they were meant to, they work well.

I don't care much for the idea that being in a union means you can piss off on the clock and your job is safe; that's bullshit. I also think that in many cases those who are unionized tend to make way more money per hour than they should; I remember back in the early 80s when the Albuquerque supermarkets were still union (might still be, but I doubt it) those cashiers were making like $15 an hour. WTF? To stand there and punch in prices and take money and give change? Give me a break!

That said, the local grocery store here pays $7 an hour to their cashiers. Unless they have a full 40 a week (and not one second of OT is ever, ever allowed unless they are a salaried store or department manager) there are no benefits. They don't even have a holiday party for the staff of their three stores.

Seems to me there must be some kind of middle to this road.
Unions can be great. I have an absolute asshole for a principal. He came in when I was showing the movie, "Farewell To Manzanar." The movie is part of my state social studies/language art curriculum. My students read the book before seeing the movie. He got mad because he hadn't received the proper paper work and wanted to write me up. I show one movie a year maybe and this was academic. My union told him to bring it on, I have whole portfoios of work that my students have done this summer.

[fountainhouse]

Where else but good old capitalistic America does the nation's largest private employer instruct its workers how to vote? :irollers2 They could have thought of something a little more ominous than unions, though, like maybe "We'll lock you in at night," or maybe "We'll make you work off the clock" or something, except they already do. lol

[krisinluck]

If something is unsafe I'm going to the OHC. They can immediately shut the job site down and levy fines up to 200 thousand.

Unless things are very different in the US and England, unions haven't been needed for safety in decades.

Kris if all that person can get is a job for $7.00, is it the businesses fault?

Or should it be a wake up call to that person?Yep. And the wake up call is something like this: get the hell out of this town or prepare to drive 75-100 miles one way each day for a decent paying job.

Even the so-called "skilled" factory workers are making less an hour than I made as an office manager in 1995...and their benefits are ridiculously expensive and useless to boot. WTF was I thinking?

[kim]

- a worker owned co-op is a much better thing than a union cuz everybody is working for the company and everybody owns the company as well so there isn't much (any) room for conflict of interest (i'm not saying unions are bad - i think they are good - for the most part - but co-ops are better)...

[Doofy]

Our minimum wage is going through the roof, and the reason they give is that a single mother with three kids can't live on it.

Why should a business owner have to support a single mother, when he can get a high school kid with the same set of skills, who is more than happy to work for half those wages.

[agogoboots]

Minimum wage is going through the roof?!

Have you checked the cost of living increase v. minimum wage increase over the years?

I've been doing some "job shopping" and one thing I have noted are the hilariously low salaries being offered all around. I can't begin tell you how many jobs I've seen that require a master's degree and offer $20K per year.

But back to minimum wage... here is's $5.15 per hour. That is $824 per month before deductions. A one bedroom apartment for a single person (not a single mother with kids) costs $750 a month minimum. That leaves $74 for deductions, utilities, gas, food, and clothing.

Daycare for an infant costs $840 per month, more than a married working mother will make a month.

I'm a mom with two kids, a mortgage, a car payment, insurance, utilites, etc. and I can not live on less than $3000 a month with no extras... and luckily my (15 year old) house payment is just slightly more than a one bedroom apartment, which is not the case for most. Even with an income of $3000 a month we have no healthcare/insurance. Health insurance would run about another $700 a month for myself and two kids.

Not but a few years back $100 would fill a grocery cart. Now I'm lucky if I can fill one for $250.

I think you aren't quite up on what it costs to live.

[agogoboots]

Table 1: Changes in Cost-of-living and the Minimum Wage Since September 1997

Overall inflation 26%

Food 23%

Housing 29%

Medical care 43%

Child care and nursery school 52%

Educational books and supplies 61%

Gasoline, unleaded regular 134%

Minimum wage 0%

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

(Please note that these figures are from 2006... BEFORE gas went to $4 a gallon and food went through the roof. Some of those figures may be near double the ones stated now.)

[agogoboots]

That leaves $74 for deductions, utilities, gas, food, and clothing.

And car, and insurance, and healthcare.

[tekobari]

Terri's right. Minimum wage tends to follow the cost of living of the state. It's not a living wage. I bought a carton of eggs two days ago and it was $4.29 (California). Eggs used to be the cheapest form of easy to digest, complete protein. I saw a pound of lean ground beef was $6.14. It's rice and beans time, folks, not that it matters to me.

I don't know what the elderly do. I really don't.

[krisinluck]

Doofy is in Canada; maybe the wages are higher there?

Terri - minimum wage there is $5.15, even after the Federal increase that went into effect last month? Something isn't right with that.

Poking around online, I see that MS is one of a handful of states without a set minimum wage, but in that case, federal takes over. The FLSA establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments. Covered nonexempt workers are entitled to a minimum wage of not less than $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007; $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008; and $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. Overtime pay at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay is required after 40 hours of work in a workweek. Source (http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/)In terms of state vs. federal, the higher number prevails. In Wisconsin, minimum wage is $6.50, but the federal wage is higher so prevails. In California, the state has set minimum at $8.00; Federal is less, so the state standard rules.

That link up there is pretty handy; lots of links to dig deeper with.

[tekobari]

Forty hours a week works out to 2,080 hours/year. In California at minimum wage, that's $16,640/yr. gross. After fed, state income taxes; SS tax and disability tax, you'd be lucky to come away with 13,500, or about that. I couldn't live on that as a single person. If both my husband and I were working for min. wage, yes, we could get by, as long as the car didn't need repairs and we purchased the minimum car insurance available (and got health insurance from our jobs, which doesn't happen much in min. wage jobs). Lots of "ifs" there.

I suppose we could rent a larger apartment and get in roomates or another married couple to divvy up costs. That wouldn't do much for our marriage, to have other people hanging around, but you do what you have to do. We'd have no cushion, and only if we were lucky could we put a few dollars into savings a month for the bad times. Retirement? Forget it. Work until you die. That would be fine if you loved your job, but there just aren't many min. wage jobs you can love.

Sometimes I think that there are some better-off people who just hate the working poor. I mean HATE. Why? Because they're afraid that they could easily end up there themselves, and fear drives the hate? I'd rather my taxes go to the desperate than to the killing machine we spend so much on. A health plan with a sliding fee scale, for instance. Everyone deserves to live in a rich country such as ours.

Okay. A button got pushed and I got pissed. Sorry.

[toys-to-treasures]

The minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage. That was never its purpose. In a free market there is plenty of room for jobs with wages below what is needed to live on.

You are free to advocate that the minimum wage should be a living wage though.

If every wage should be a living wage how would you handle entry level and starter type jobs that are done by kids in school? What would happen to those jobs if they were required to pay a living wage?

imo Doofy is right.

[mivona]

What do you do when more and more jobs pay only basic rates? When there are no benefits attached to the jobs that don't pay enough to enable someone to buy them?

As jobs become more and more two-tiered, I hope that my children understand the value of education and working hard, so that they will at least have a chance at getting a job that can support them or identify a niche for them to provide their own work.

[kim]

- there are lots of people with an education who don't get paid well and they also work their asses off...

[mivona]

I know (and they know) there is no certainty - but the probability is that being uneducated and slack is less likely to bring in enough to live on.

[kim]

yeah true that...

- i just remember working way back in the 1970's in restaurants with people who had masters degrees and couldn't get a better paying job things haven't gotten any better since imo...

[kim]

- also a number of our cab drivers have doctorates...

[mivona]

The benefits of moving to a service economy, I guess...

[litlux]

Of course the point of the article is that WalMart is throwing its weight around trying to intimidate its employees into voting for McCain. I have no doubt that WalMart management will do all they can to keep the Republicans in power, as will their stockholders and suppliers.

Just look at those who are benefitting from all those tax cuts, and those agencies that have been crippled and made dysfunctional by Republican termites and policies. Under the Republicans management and those who profit from the labor of others have had a field day, while the majority of people are worse off than they were eight years ago.

It is time that the people cleaned out the vested interests and put in some people who might look out for the common man.

[paleryder]

hahaha.....I'm sure this must be a big misunderstanding......I mean, Wal-Mart wouldn't act like this. :JapA003:

Unions Seek Probe of Wal-Mart Over Election Law
At Issue Is Talk With Employees On Vote Impact
By KRIS MAHER and ANN ZIMMERMAN
August 14, 2008; Page A3

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.


Mary Beth Maxwell, executive director of American Rights at Work, said Wal-Mart "adapted their unionbusting tactics to influence our federal election system."


Meanwhile, new details are emerging that show Wal-Mart managers leading the meetings are spreading inaccurate information about the Employee Free Choice Act, according to a digital recording of a Wal-Mart meeting made by a Wal-Mart employee and reviewed by the Journal.

In the hour-and-a-half meeting, held for managers in a Southern state, the leader tells 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.

"If you have 10 associates in a photo lab and six sign union authorization cars, now the store is unionized," the meeting leader told employees. "Six people can make a decision for 350 people," which is about the average number of workers in a Walmart supercenter.

Labor lawyers say these are inaccurate interpretations of labor law in general and the Employee Free Choice Act specifically, and that could be a violation of labor law. "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."

Wal-Mart said that the three comments regarding minimum wage, Social Security numbers and unionizing small units don't reflect Wal-Mart's understanding of the law and weren't included in its training.

According to the recording, the meeting leader, a human-resources manager, began by saying she was going to talk about the company and unions and "a little bit of politics," specifically the Employee Free Choice Act. The leader said that the bill almost passed last year. "If Democrats get the votes they need and elect a Democratic president, they said it will be the first bill presented and that's scary," she said.

Wal-Mart's Mr. Tovar said the meeting leader's use of the word scary was "unauthorized."

The managers and supervisors were told that they could not threaten, intimidate, make promises to or spy on workers interested in a union. They could, however, give facts, opinions and share experiences. During the meeting, employees were shown a video enactment of a union steward telling a manager that the manager could be fined for cleaning up a spill on a store floor because of the union contract. In another clip, a role-playing manager says, "When I was little my dad belonged to the United Auto Workers union. They went out on strike and he had to walk the picket line for six months."

At one point, the meeting leader mentioned that union representatives are already asking Wal-Mart workers to sign cards, which would be valid for a year. Mr. Tovar confirmed that unions are "actively collecting signatures for authorization cards now at our stores."

wsj (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121867433681738991.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)

[mivona]

If Walmart didn't try so hard to screw over its workforce, they wouldn't have the threat of a union being wanted by their workers.

They are so frightened of the collective of its workers that they will lie in order to try to avoid it. Having unhappy employees makes having a union more likely, and possibly inevitable.

[krisinluck]

The comicstrip Candorville has been covering this for the several days. I just keep forgetting to bring any of them over here! Here are my two favorites so far:

From 08/11/08
http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/cand/2008/cand080811.gif

08/15/08
http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/cand/2008/cand080814.gif

It's not going unnoticed!