The little union that could just got some company.
Last week, a Wal-Mart in Saint-Hyacinthe, QC, joined Local 501 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), becoming the second unionized Wal-Mart in North America — out of 3,835 stores — and putting one more chink in the retail giant’s heretofore union-proof armour.
The Quebec Labour Relations Commission (QLRC) certified the store after the majority of its 200 employees signed cards designating UFCW as the store’s official collective bargaining agent. That makes two unionized Wal-Marts in Quebec. The first, in Jonquière (see “The Wal-Mart challenge, editorial, Aug. 5, 2004 and “Retail fails, City, Sept. 2, 2004), was certified by the QLRC last August.
“This is a victory for the employees in the store and Wal-Mart workers across the country,” says Michael Forman of UFCW Canada. “Wal-Mart workers can see if the majority of workers in their store want a union, they can have one.”
It’s not quite that easy, however. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest private employer, with a staff of more than 65,000 in Canada and annual revenue of US$256.3 billion. The corporation is notoriously anti-union (or, as it likes to say, “prefers to remain union-free”) and reportedly employs an effective union-busting team that can appear at any store where workers show signs of organizing. According to reports, workers in the United States have been fired for trying to organize.
“It’s a struggle to organize any workplace,” says Forman. The company will resist and the company will intimidate.”
Take Jonquière, for example.
In October of last year, soon after the store was certified, Wal-Mart circulated a letter stating the outlet was losing money and may have to close. It would have been the first Canadian store Wal-Mart would have ever closed for “under-performance.”
And then there’s Weyburn, Sk., where the Saskatchewan Labour Board and the province’s Court of Appeals have both demanded Wal-Mart present internal documents on its anti-union strategies, to no avail.
“Whenever there’s been some activity at a store, [Wal-Mart] will do whatever it can to stall the process,” Forman says. Sometimes this means over a period of six months, while cases are in courts or in front of labour boards, management can fire or switch around staff until the people involved with the union drive are gone.
In the case of Saint-Hyacinthe, Wal-Mart has said it will fight the QLRC’s decision, and is considering legal action. Wal-Mart Canada spokesperson Andrew Pelletier called the QLRC’s certification “undemocratic.” The company claims the Saint-Hyacinthe employees did not hold a secret ballot vote to determine whether the store should unionize. But, said the UFCW in a press release, Wal-Mart wants a secret ballot vote “so that the company can intimidate their employees to vote against the union.”
Employees in Jonquière are currently in negotiations with the store, working on what will be the first collective agreement for Wal-Mart workers in North America. And the UFCW has applications pending to represent workers at 12 other Wal-Marts in Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.
“It’s no longer a fantasy to have a union at Wal-Mart,” Forman says. “It’s hard, but it’s not hopeless.”
Posted by UFCW 227 at January 27, 2005 03:07 PM