Yet another reason to hate Wal-Mart

By Kathy G.

There's a stunning story on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal about how Wal-Mart is freaking out over the possibility of a Democratic win in the fall. So much so, in fact, that they're calling mandatory propaganda meetings across the nation in which they're indoctrinating workers about the alleged dangers of a Democratic takeover:

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.

What are they worried about, exactly?  It seems to boil down to this: they're very, very worried that the Employee Free Choice Act (otherwise known as "card check") will pass, and that this will make it easier to organize unions in Wal-Mart stores. Just yesterday I was writing with some skepticism that this legislation might not live up to its proponents' claims, but maybe I was wrong, and it will turn out to be more effective than I thought. And maybe the Dems pose more of a threat to the economic powers that be than I often think they do. Also, I must say, sentences like the following put a spring in my step and a song in my heart:

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.

As the article documents, it's not just Wal-Mart that's up in arms over card check -- the entire business community is very, very concerned as well. They're putting big bucks behind the effort to torpedo this legislation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is part of the anti-card check campaign, and I practically did a spit take reading what their spokesman had to say about it: "This is a David-and-Goliath confrontation, but we believe we'll have enough stones in the sling to knock this out."

There's plenty of other great stuff in the article as well. For one thing -- oopsy! -- it looks like those politically oriented meetings with employees may be against the law:

Wal-Mart may be walking a fine legal line by holding meetings with its store department heads that link politics with a strong antiunion message. Federal election rules permit companies to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees. While store managers are on salary, department supervisors are hourly workers.

A Wal-Mart spokesman denies that employees were being told how to vote:

"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.

Sounds good -- except:

"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.

D'oh!

Anyway, as they say, read the whole thing. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Wall Street Journal has long been my favorite newspaper. Yes, the editorial and opinion pages (with the blessed exception of Tom Frank) are barking mad -- clearly. But the news bureau is probably the best in the business. Every good lefty should read the Journal -- no other daily paper in this country provides a better map as to where the bodies are buried in American capitalism.

Comments

[Elana Levin of UNITE HERE]

Thanks for highlighting this story Kathy G.
It really demonstrates how urgent getting the Employee Free Choice Act passed is for the health of the whole country!

Check out American Rights At Works' EFCA campaign at http://www.freechoiceact.org/page/s/araw

[Minivet]

My understanding has been that real, obvious exploitation has been built into the Walmart business model for some time - not just the normal drudgery, low wages, and dead-end jobs now normal to America, but massive amounts of plausibly-deniable unpaid overtime and other abuses that are bound to make employees want a union if they have a chance. So it makes sense that they are going apeshit about even the slightest possibility of a more favorable political environment for employees and unions. (Sow, reap, etc.)

[JustaDog]

O my god - unreal!

Nothing like the mega-millions unions are dumping into their puppet Obama, and ordering their union workers to vote for the union candidate - Barack Obama.

My wife is a forced union working nurse (she has no choice, no freedom to work unless she agreed to join the union) and she had got countless mailings telling her who to vote for.

Things you leave out of your posts - intentionally.

[George Neiiendam]

Regarding Kathy G's article "Another Reason
to hate Wal-Mart,"she apparently believes, as do so many other "liberals", that busi-nesses should not have the right to organ- ize against anything that might do them great harm. She needs to understand that businesses exist to make a profit. They are not social welfare institutions. Busi-
ness is the only means by which wealth is created in any society. Government and unions are powerless to create wealth--but
they certainly can destroy it! Without
profit business cannot grow, expand, pro-
vide new products and services, and do re- search--without which there would be NO JOBS, no consumer goods, no new products--in short a society plagued by a low stan- dard of living and chronic shortages of
everything. (And yes--some people will actually earn more than others! Horrors! These will be the risk takers and the entrepreneurs who move the economy forward--You know, the same people who pay 80% of all the taxes.) And what makes her think
that unions are an unmitigated good? Wal-
Mart has every right to be strongly con-
cened and to point out to its employees that they should not cede their right to
work, to vote, and even to think, to a union. Take, for example, the disaster
to American education that has resulted from the stranglehold placed on it by the teacher's unions--all uniformly against
anything that might bring back excellence.
And how about those Teamsters? And don't
forget to ask former governor Jerry Brown
about the biggest--and admitted--mistake he ever made: allowing public employees to
unionize in California.

George Neiiendam

[Sir Charles]

justadgo,

Why don't you tell your wife to leave her union wages and work and find a non-union hospital -- there are plenty of them around. Oh what -- the pay is better where she is now. Go figure.

Tell your wife not to be a freeloading asshole. If she wants the benefits of a union contract, pay her dues like everyone else and shut the fuck up. If not, there are plenty of places she can ply her trade for substandard wages. She can then impress her new employer with her intrinsic market worth. Lotsa luck with that.

[Matt Weiner]

she had got countless mailings telling her who to vote for.

I'm (semi-genuinely) curious; do unions actually have meetings at which they push a particular candidate? Because mailings are ridiculously uncoercive, people can just throw them out. Whereas at a meeting people can gauge your reactions and attitudes; and when the people doing this are the people who can fire you or block your promotions, it seems pretty damn coercive to me.

I'm a member of AFT and they sent me a mailer telling me to vote for Clinton in the primary. I felt pretty uncoerced by it. Then again my local sent around an e-mail shortly thereafter saying that that was a national thing and they took no position in the primary. Vermont college professors are probably the most pro-Obama group of white people in the country.

[Matt Weiner]

...first paragraph was a quote from JustaDog.

[JJohnson]

I dislike Walmart. All of their supposedly high theft items are kept under lock and key and customers are not allowed to carry them through the store. There is no good customer service and the stores in my area always dirty and the lines are long with very few registers open. I don't plan to shop at Walmart ever. I miss good customer service and some of their prices aren't the lowest if you take the time to shop around and do your research.

[Nelson Lichtenstein]

Readers might want to take a look at my new book, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created A Brave New World of Business (Metropolitan Books), out in July 2009.

Nelson Lichtenstein