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Rollback America: Wal-Mart Undermines Workers' Rights - Page 3

© Michael J. Swogger

One way in which the company is able to keep wages and benefits low is through its aggressive - and often illegal - union-busting activities. Upon being hired, employees go through a somewhat rigorous "orientation," a component of which is a video explaining why Wal-Mart doesn't need unions. If employees make the mistake of attempting to unionize, union-busters are sent in from Bentonville to quell the threat. Corporate headquarters instructs its managers to "individually work over any employee who might be a union sympathizer." Additionally, some employees suspected of union activity learn all of a sudden that they are managers (though not paid manager wages), thus not able to organize. In fact, many intimidation tactics have been utilized to persuade employees of the harmful effects of attempting to organize. Wal-Mart managers have interrogated workers, confiscated union literature, set up surveillance cameras to monitor workers, and spying on pro-union employees. Other employees known to be anti-union have been rewarded with "pro-associate" buttons. Martin Levitt, a consultant who helped Wal-Mart develop some of its anti-union tactics, was quite candid about the company's practices: "In my 35 years of labor relations, I've never seen a company that will go to the lengths that Wal-Mart goes to avoid a union. They have zero tolerance."⁶

Wal-Mart's anti-union practices have caught the attention of the National Labor Relations Board, established in 1935 as part of the Wagner Act. There have been a significant number of cases in which the NLRB has ruled that Wal-Mart repeatedly broke federal labor law in preventing its workers from even discussing union organization.** In but one such case, the Board affirmed a federal judge's ruling that the an Indiana store "unlawfully prohibited [union] organizers from handbilling while allowing other organizations to solicit, and by contacting the police and causing them to warn the handbillers."

A company spokesperson: "Union representation may work well for others. However, it is not a fit for Wal-Mart."⁷

There are even more problems with the company that rolls back prices by rolling back workers' rights. It is alleged that Wal-Mart has also found that labor costs can be reduced through gender discrimination. With more than two-thirds of its employees being female, women make up less than ten percent of top store managers. What is more, an internal Wal-Mart investigation (perhaps ignored like the most recent audit) showed the company (purposefully?) pays female managers less than males in the same position.⁸

Wal-Mart was also recently nailed with a class-action suit for secretly taking out life insurance policies on its employees and making the company the beneficiary! A federal court judge ruled in for the plaintiffs in 2001, and Wal-Mart appealed. The company recently settled when it was apparent that the appeals court would also rule against Wal-Mart. In a desperate attempt to downplay this practice, the giant retailer has said that it lost money on the policies and it dismantled them after the IRS took away the advantages of the program.⁹

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