Walmart Resisting Unionization

Wal-Mart Leaves Bitter Chill

For my libertarian friends who don't want to register online, I've excerpted some key pieces (in italics) and added my comments. The overall idea is a Walmart is closing after a union was started.

The Wal-Mart here is one of three in the area, and it was welcomed when it opened more than three years ago. The town's manufacturing legs are getting old: Both Alcan and Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. paper mills closed lines in their plants last year, costing 1,200 jobs.

"Economically, it's not a good time for us," said the mayor of the Saguenay area, Jean Tremblay. The new Wal-Mart was swamped with applications, and those who were hired thought themselves lucky.

Okay folks: supply, demand. Learn it, live it, love it. You don't demand MORE when you have no bargaining power!

"I never had a job as good as this before," said Lynn Morissette, 44, who tracks inventory in the store. "I worked in the daytime. I thought I had a good wage, and I was a shareholder, too, so I could save up some money. I was going to retire here."

Ah, the free market is a beautiful thing. She felt some ownership and worked harder and was happy. Was that good enough for the do-gooder unionizers?

Those involved in the organizing effort claim they were harassed by the company. "We were targeted fairly quickly by Wal-Mart," said Pierre Martineau, a 60-year-old maintenance man who helped organize the union. He said he was humiliated and ridiculed by managers at a store-wide meeting and followed around by supervisors who made implied threats.
"I felt treated worse than an animal," he said.

Those who did not want a union say organizers harassed them to join. "People signed the cards just to get some peace" from the union organizers, said Noella Langlois, 53, who works in the clothing department. "They thought they would vote against it in a secret vote."

So, some people are jerks, big surprise there. Doesn't sound like either side broke any bones, though.

In fact, there was a vote last April that rejected the union. But under Quebec labor laws, the organizers could try again. When they collected signed union cards from 51 percent of the employees, the law declared the Jonquiere Wal-Mart a union shop.

Pelletier, the Wal-Mart spokesman, says the Quebec laws are unfair, and only a secret ballot would show the true feelings of the workers.

"Signing a union card, when there's someone on your doorstep at night saying, 'Sign this card,' should not be the last word," he said. "A democratic, secret vote is the only way to avoid intimidation by either the union or an employer."

Wow, what a revelation! People are more likely to give you their true opinion when the ballots are secret. D-e-m-o-c-r-a-c-y... what a concept!

Company officials said [the store] was losing money, and the demands of the union would have made it even less tenable.

"You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules," Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. told The Washington Post after the announcement.

Again: supply and demand. There's a certain elegant beauty to it. Here's an idea: don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. If you demand too much, your employer will up and move. Demand what you are worth--fair market price.

Some here in Jonquiere don't believe the company's claim that the store was losing money. They say the chain sacrificed the store to make a point to its employees across Canada and the United States, where union organizers are involved in dozens of organizing drives and court battles.

Yeah, because major corporations always make business decisions to make a point rather than make money. Um, if they did that on a regular basis, THEY WOULDN'T BE A MAJOR CORPORATION!

The announcement deepened animosities among the employees. Those who liked their jobs and said they were happy at Wal-Mart are bitter at the union for its tactics, which they blame for the store closure.

"We were duped by the union. There was absolutely no need to unionize," said Rejan Lavoie, 40, a single father who took a job as a department manager at Wal-Mart to be home in the evenings with his 8-year-old son. He fears he will not find another job with a workable schedule.

"We weren't asking for the moon," said Bergeron, who spent two years quietly contacting fellow employees at their homes to enlist them in the union. "It's the largest and richest company in the world. They could afford to improve conditions. We only wanted to be treated like human beings."

Hey Bergeron, you aren't starving... why don't you send everything you don't need to some starving people? Gee, maybe because you work so that YOU can enjoy the fruits of your labor. Walmart is a business, not a charity. It is also a business that was providing your town with much needed jobs... until you got involved.

Sylvie Lavoie, 40, said she is unsure how, as a single mother, she will support herself and her 10-year-old daughter after the store closes. But the backup cashier, who earns $7.55 an hour, said she does not regret joining the union drive.

"We can't regret trying to make our lives better," she said at the union hall. "I don't know what I'll do, but I know my daughter will be proud of me."

Next time you want to make your daughter proud of you by trying to make your lives better, get additional training or education. Then she can be proud AND you won't have to wonder how you will support your family.