Staging rowdy protests outside 400 stores across the country, organized labor on Thursday launched a major offensive against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the United States’ largest retailer and an emphatically non-union employer.
The protests, which drew support from feminists, students and religious leaders, were a conscious attempt by labor to stir debate about the company and to build allies in its long-running campaign to organize Wal-Mart workers.
The United Food and Commercial Workers union in particular has poured resources into its attempts to block or organize Wal-Mart, so far with limited success. Other unions, representing garment workers to janitors, have said their members’ jobs and wages are threatened by Wal-Mart’s growth. But labor as a whole has been unable to develop an effective strategy to counter Wal-Mart’s success.
“This is a very, very tough company–it’s a very tough nut,” said the AFL-CIO’s organizing director, Stewart Acuff, speaking from a Wal-Mart store in Alexandria, Va.
About 15 to 20 people protested outside the Wal-Mart in Rolling Meadows, Ill. The demonstrators were members of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a union that has long been trying to organize Wal-Mart employees, said Bill Wertz, a company spokesman.
Protesters’ allegations
The protesters claim the giant chain’s emphasis on low prices comes at the expense of employees’ wages and benefits and also drives down labor standards in global manufacturing.
In addition, the National Organization for Women claims the corporation engages in sex discrimination, saying women comprise a majority of low-paid sales clerks but are rarely placed in management positions. The company denies that allegation.
The labor offensive comes as Wal-Mart, which employs more than 1 million workers in about 3,300 U.S. stores, expands aggressively into the highly unionized supermarket business. Next year, the company plans to open at least 180 “super centers,” which will combine sales of discount merchandise with groceries.
Inglewood, Calif., recently passed an ordinance that bars any retail store over 155,000 square feet that sells more than 20,000 non-taxable items such as food. Although the ordinance doesn’t specifically mention Wal-Mart, Finn said it was aimed at keeping out big-box stores and super centers.
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Wal-Mart is seeking a referendum to let voters decide whether they want the giant stores, a tactic that has worked for the retailer in other communities with similar ordinances.
The chain also argued that the protests had more to do with union organizing than Wal-Mart employment practices.
“The union is a business, and it’s a declining business,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams.
“Despite years of trying, they have been unable to recruit Wal-Mart associates and now, out of frustration, they have changed their tactic and are simply trying to hurt us and damage our reputation,” she added.
Williams said Wal-Mart pays competitive wages and benefits and that doing anything less would risk the company’s success. Wal-Mart would not reveal its wage scale, but it did say that nearly half of its employees opt to buy company-provided health insurance.
Wal-Mart poll backs Wal-Mart
In a poll last spring and summer, Wal-Mart asked customers and employees about their attitudes toward the company and found that the union complaints did not even register, Williams said.
However, union researchers said employee turnover as high as 50 percent a year indicates that Wal-Mart workers are unhappy. They said the average wage is $8 per hour and that nearly two-thirds of Wal-Mart workers lack company health insurance, a shortfall that critics say unfairly burdens public health systems.
To stay in business, Wal-Mart’s competitors must hold down their own wages and benefits, which sets a low standard for retailers across the nation, the unions claim.
“We’re trying to create an awareness that as Wal-Mart goes, so goes the country,” said Greg Denier, communications director at the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
The UFCW has tried unsuccessfully to organize Wal-Mart workers for years and leads labor’s efforts against the chain. It was UFCW International President Doug Dority who was blocked from entering the Wal-Mart in Alexandria.
25 NLRB complaints
The union blames aggressive and possibly illegal anti-union company tactics for its failures. Denier said the National Labor Relations Board has filed charges against Wal-Mart in 25 states.
The company, on the other hand, said employees simply aren’t interested in joining a union. It also disputed protesters’ claims that Wal-Mart stores hurt local economies.
“We bring low price, affordable goods to communities,” Williams said. “We bring sales tax revenue, property tax revenue and we add vitality just about anywhere we go.”