John Kerry offers a real alternative of hope for America 's working families with a program for job growth, health care reform and homeland security, says UFCW president Joe Hansen. In a statement issued at the Democratic Party Convention in Boston earlier this week, Joe Hansen says that Kerry's "energy and his record of personal commitment and sacrifice for the values of working America has excited and activated workers in every region, every occupation and every industry."
"Ask a grocery store worker who was forced to strike for more than 4 months to keep health care benefits whether there is difference? Bush has done nothing except protect the interests of the drug companies and the insurance giants while everyday thousands of workers lose benefits. John Kerry has always been a fighter for health care reform and has a plan that helps protect health care benefits at work", Joe Hansen says.
John Kerry's vision stands in stark contrast with record of the Bush Administration - more than 4 million workers have lost health insurance, real wages have gone down, millions of jobs have been lost, hundreds of thousands of workers have been needlessly injured because the ergonomic standard was repealed and millions face a pay cut because overtime law has been gutted. To say there is no difference between Bush and Kerry is to ignore the impact of Bush policies on the real lives of working families", the UFCW president adds.
Electing John Kerry will make the difference, Joe Hansen says
"On every issue, John Kerry offers a pro-worker, pro-family, pro-America alternative to the Bush Administration", Joe Hansen says. "Another Bush Administration would inflict more and more suffering on working families. The election of John Kerry is the starting point for a new American dream that embraces the workforce and meets the challenges of the 21st century. For workers, voting matters, and electing John Kerry will make the difference between going forward in prosperity and security, or falling backward in economic and national insecurity. John Kerry is our best hope for the future of working America ."
John Sweeney, president of AFL-CIO, shares Joe Hansen's views about a need for change. On 2 November, the nation's voters have a choice "between a president who ships our best jobs overseas and turns his back on the men and women who built the strongest democracy and most competitive economy in the history of the world, or a president who will fight for America's jobs," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the nearly 5,000 delegates to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday (29 July).
"That's our choice," Sweeney said. And in choosing the candidate who will honour "the decent hardworking people who are the backbone of this great nation, we choose John Kerry."
Ralphs Grocery Co. has acknowledged that some managers allowed locked-out clerks to work during the Southern California grocery strike.
In a letter to employees, John Burgon, president of Ralphs Supermarkets, said the company was cooperating with a federal probe of the conduct.
"We have now determined that some of the reports of misconduct are correct," Burgon wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday. "Some members of Ralphs management did violate company policies and encouraged or permitted some locked-out employees to work during the strike."
Burgon wrote that disciplinary action would be taken against those found to have violated the company's policies.
Ralphs spokesman Terry O'Neil declined to comment on the substance of Burgon's communication. "It was a confidential letter," he said.
Union leaders ordered the strike against Safeway Inc.'s Vons and Pavilions chains on Oct. 11. Albertsons Inc. and Ralphs, a unit of Kroger Co., then locked out their employees in Southern California. In all, about 59,000 workers were idled at 859 stores for 4 1/2 months.
In addition to the federal probe, the company faces two lawsuits by the United Food and Commercial Workers union that accused Ralphs of illegally rehiring workers and putting them on the payroll under phony names.
On Thursday, UFCW Local 770 President Rick Icaza said the union would revise its complaints in light of Burgon's letter. "This vindicates what we've said," he said, adding that the dispute "could have been settled much sooner" if Ralphs hadn't illegally hired unionized workers.
Word of the letter was first reported by the Orange County Register and the North County Times in San Diego.
DETROIT - Workers at a Home Depot in suburban Detroit began voting Friday on whether to make theirs the first unionized Home Depot in the country.
If the approximately 170 workers in the Harper Woods store vote in favor of the union, it would be a major victory for the United Food and Commercial Workers, whose attempts to organize workers at Wal-Mart and other national big-box retailers largely have been unsuccessful.
"Any successful organizing that occurs in the discount big-box stores would be significant," said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "While they (Home Depot) are not as big, they are as present" as Wal-Mart.
Home Depot has more than 1,500 stores in North America.
UFCW Local 876 said it began its campaign in Harper Woods after it was contacted by workers there and at several other Home Depot stores. The local represents about 22,000 Michigan workers at retail chains including Kroger, Farmer Jack and Rite Aid.
The workers in Harper Woods are seeking greater job security after a rash of firings, said UFCW organizer Mark Charrette.
"It got to a point where you were wondering when you came to work if you were going to be fired that day as well," said Alicia Franklin, a 36-year-old cashier at the store.
Home Depot said its employees are better off without the union.
"We recognize the right of our associates to examine third-party representation but are confident that in the end they will choose the positive, open and rewarding business environment they currently enjoy," the Atlanta-based company said in a statement.
Victory at Harper Woods store would be first in the country for national chain
By Tenisha Mercer / The Detroit News
HARPER WOODS — Nearly 175 Home Depot employees will vote Friday and Saturday on whether they want a union at the Eight Mile and Kelly store in Harper Woods.
If successful, the push would mark the first labor union organization at any Home Depot store in the country. Unions have tried to recruit Home Depot workers in the past, but failed to collect enough worker signatures to force a vote.
The demands: Home Depot employees backing union representation say they want the company to provide:
* Uniform rules about work schedules, salaries and firings.
* Lower health care premiums.
Now, after months of lobbying, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 876 in Madison Heights is optimistic that secret ballot elections at the store near Eastland Center will garner an affirmative vote. A majority of yes votes from hourly, nonmanagement employees is required to form a union.
Decrying what they describe as expensive health-care costs and poor working conditions, “the employees don’t feel wage increases are keeping up with the growth of the company,” said UFCW organizing director Mark Charrette.
Employees want uniform rules about work schedules, wages and firing, for example, and lower health-care premiums. Home Depot employee Jay Wright says his health care premiums have risen to $300 a month while his wages have largely remained stagnant.
“Enough is enough,” said Wright, 47, who has worked stocking supplies and in customer service in the plumbing department for two years. “I’m not a disgruntled employee, but I know work conditions could be better. We have people who do the exact same jobs and none are paid equally.”
In a statement, Home Depot said, “We recognize the right of our associates to examine third party representation, but are confident that in the end they will choose the positive, open and rewarding business environment they currently enjoy.”
Wright said Home Depot has held barbecues and shown anti-union movies to employees.
“People are afraid, and (the company) is doing everything the can to stop this,” said Wright, who said he has been warned to stop his union activities and was asked to remove a “Union Yes!” button he wore in the store.
In addition to the Harper Woods store, the UFCW is organizing workers at the Home Depot store in Flint, Charrette said. It also is trying to recruit workers at Target stores in Utica, Sterling Heights, Woodhaven, Taylor and Monroe.
Members of Food and Commercial Workers Union Bring Enthusiasm and Perspective from America's Workplaces
BOSTON, July 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Among the tens of thousands of delegates to the Democratic Convention, one would be hard-pressed to find many who embody the experience and perspective of middle America swing voters. Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), elected as delegates from their respective home states, reflect the real concerns of voters across the country.
UFCW member Jeanelle Fuson is an alternate delegate from Covington, Kentucky, where she works as a pharmacy technician. Jeanelle is concerned about rising health care costs. She is proud to participate in the Democratic National Convention and has boasted that she may be one of the only delegates at the convention who raises a family on her yearly income of under $20,000 a year.
Twenty-year-old delegate Justin Meyers of Grand Rapids, Mich., wants to change the country. He thinks it's going in a negative direction, especially for people his age. "Health care, the job market, college tuition -- we have to turn things around," says Meyers, a supermarket cashier and college student. As a member of the UFCW Local 951, he is actively reaching out to his co-workers and fellow students to register and vote for the Kerry/Edwards ticket.
"Kerry's optimism and energy are infectious," says Meyers. "He's a charismatic guy, who understands the issues, and he's actively offering young people real choices for change." Meyers is especially concerned that good paying jobs aren't going to be around when he and his fellow students graduate from college. "The majority of new jobs being generated are low pay, no benefit jobs," he says. "We need good jobs with health care so people can afford to live."
Costello Dash is an African-American delegate from the Bronx, New York. Costello works in the stockroom at Bloomingdales and has been an active member of his union, UFCW Local 3. He is concerned about health care both for himself and his family and for all retail workers. He wants to see an economic recovery that will result in quality jobs with good benefits.
Audrey Swanson is an African-American delegate from Carrollton, Texas, where she is new to the political scene. She works in a Sara Lee bakery warehouse where her job helps her support her husband and kids. Audrey has never been too interested in politics, until now. Grown frustrated by our country's stagnated economy and employer attacks on affordable health care, Audrey decided it was time to get involved. She ran for delegate and won.
Carmen Acosta works in a grocery store in Queens, New York where she is a member of UFCW Local 338.
For all of these workers, the 2004 Democratic National Convention is their first experience at a national political convention.
Also among the UFCW delegation is the leader of the largest local union in Michigan. Michigan's biggest union isn't in the auto industry anymore, but a union representing workers at a discount retailer. Robert Potter is President of UFCW Local 951 which represents 35,000 workers across Michigan, mostly at Meijer. Lew Piercey, another UFCW delegate, leads UFCW Local 700 which is the largest local union in Indiana. Both local presidents are focused on health care reform as a key issue in the November elections.
BOSTON (PAI) – When he gets to Boston, Richard Martin will discuss health insurance and homeland security.
When she greets her colleagues, Maria Balestri will push for education issues and raise questions about our future course in Iraq.
After his plane lands, Brett Voorhies will talk trade and jobs. And Ann Henkel of Jacksonville, Fla., and Sharon Palmer of Waterford, Conn., will tell Democrats about “teaching to the test” and “flexibility” in the classroom.
What do all these people have in common? They’re all unionists, and they’re all among the hundreds of union members who will be delegates to the Democratic National Convention here, July 26-29.
A few examples: the American Federation of Teachers will send 121 members. Indiana’s group includes 20 union delegates and four alternates, from eight different unions. And 28 fire fighters hail from 19 states.
Joining them will be dozens of steel workers, laborers, UFCW members, SEIU and AFSCME activists, leaders of state federations, and more. There are so many that labor is co-sponsoring its own discussion during the conclave – on trade – on July 27.
The high number of unionists in Boston is no surprise. They were 26 percent of the vote in the 2000 election, and the AFL-CIO has set a target for union families to be 31 percent of the vote this year.
Voorhies, USWA District 7 coordinator from Avon, Ind., an elected delegate, will talk trade and jobs. “They’re committed to us, and he [Kerry] says he would not sign the Free Trade Area of the Americas pact or CAFTA,” the proposed pro-business Central American Free Trade Agreement, Voorhies says.
Martin, of Murphysboro, Ill., brings the perspective of a small-town firefighter – which he is – as president of Local 3042. He also brings perspectives of a parent and school board member.
“Health care and homeland security are huge, for me and for other fire fighters,” he says. Health care costs are up so high Martin’s members had to sign a contract with no pay raise. “I’m on the school board and because of health care, the money is not there,” for the schools, he adds.
Not only that, but older firefighters, whose reactions are slower, don’t retire, because they can’t afford health care. That reduces fire department reliability, Martin worries. And though Bush promised more homeland security after the 9/11 terror attacks, Martin hasn’t seen it – even though 344 New York firefighters died as “first responders” trying to rescue people from the collapsing World Trade Center.
“I was out in Las Vegas for our IAFF convention and Bush promised us all these things on a nice little video – and the next day he vetoed them,” Martin said, referring to Bush budget cuts in first responder money.
For Balestri, a high school history teacher from LaSalle-Peru, Ill., the convention will be part lobbying effort on education issues, and part civics lesson she can use for her students. “I’ll be talking about issues as an educator, and as a parent, too,” Balestri explains.
Health care troubles Balestri, because she saw a contrast. A friend became deathly ill on a recent trip to Denmark and was hospitalized for 10 days there, she says. “Do you know what her bill was? Zero! Denmark has national health care.”
Henkel and Palmer, two veteran teachers, will raise the impact of the Bush regime’s No Child Left Behind law on both teachers and schools. Henkel notes third-grade pass-or-fail achievement tests put incredible pressure on schools and kids. “I had one third-grader, an outstanding student, who woke up in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack over the test,” she says. “I wonder how many of our legislators would pass it.”
Charter schools are another issue that Henkel, a Floridian, will raise. GOP Gov. Jeb Bush pushes them there but with no standards, unlike public schools. “The bottom line for the schools is to fix and fund them,” Palmer said.
Balestri is also concerned about the war in Iraq. “All these experienced men put our sons and daughters in harm’s way – and for what?” she asks. “But the question we have to answer is what will we do now.”
Interest in Unionizing Increasing Among Home Depot Workers
Thursday July 22, 5:36 pm ET
Union Representation Election Scheduled at Harper Woods Store
MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich., July 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Workers at the Harper Woods Home Depot store will decide next week if they will become the first Home Depot workers in the country to elect union representation.
"Workers at several area Home Depot stores contacted us looking to improve their working conditions by unionizing their stores," Andy Johnson, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 876's president, said. "Workers at the Harper Woods store moved very quickly and petitioned the federal government to conduct a union representation election."
On July 30 and 31, representatives from the National Labor Relations Board will conduct a secret ballot election in which workers at the store located at 20300 Kelly Rd. in Harper Woods will vote for or against UFCW Local 876 representation.
"The employer is doing their best to convince workers to vote against unionizing," Johnson said. "Ever since Home Depot realized these are workers serious about standing up and exercising their right to form a union, the company has waged your typical union busting campaign."
It was this type of union busting campaign that led the UFCW to file unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB on behalf of Home Depot workers at the Hill St. store in Flint. The charges allege Home Depot engaged in illegal activity when it interfered with the workers' right to organize a union at their workplace.
"The NLRB has issued a complaint on these charges ordering Home Depot to cease and desist from such action and scheduled a formal hearing regarding the charges for September 23, 2004," Johnson said.
Several common issues led Home Depot workers at different stores to undertake union organizing efforts including a desire to put an end to their status as "at-will" employees with no workplace guarantees or protections, and being forced to shoulder more than what they believe to be their fair share of increasing health insurance costs.
Workers from both the Harper Woods and Flint stores are available for interviews and are willing to answer questions regarding their organizing campaigns and Home Depot's union busting efforts.
UFCW Local 876 represents over 22,000 workers in eastern and northern Michigan who work for Kroger, Farmer Jack, Rite Aid, and at numerous other commercial worksites including meat packing plants. The UFCW is one of the three largest unions in the Michigan AFL/CIO. The UFCW International is the largest private sector union in the country, with over 1.4 million members.
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Executives at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp., competitors in the $76 billion U.S. warehouse-club market, have taken their rivalry to a new level: national politics.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and owner of Sam's Club warehouse stores, gives more money to Republican candidates than any other company. Its top three managers, including Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott, donated the individual maximum $2,000 to President George W. Bush, and Jay Allen, vice president for corporate affairs, raised at least $100,000 to re-elect the president, earning him the Bush campaign's designation of ``Pioneer.''
Wal-Mart -- two-thirds of whose 3,580 stores are in the ``red states'' that voted for Bush in 2000 -- is backing White House policies on everything from trade to limiting overtime pay.
Costco CEO Jim Sinegal, 68, is a Democrat who says Bush's $1.7 trillion in tax cuts unfairly benefit the wealthy. He opposed the Iraq war and supports Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts for president. And he's the only chief executive of a company in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to donate money to independent political groups formed to oust Bush, Internal Revenue Service records show.
``Wal-Mart is extremely strong in Republican strongholds; they are a red-state retailer,'' said Amy Bonkoski, an investment adviser at Cleveland-based National City Corp.'s private-client group, which manages about $26 billion, including Wal-Mart and Costco shares. ``Costco is stronger in Democratic states. Costco is a friend to labor. Unions hate Wal-Mart.''
Costco's Candidate
The differences are based on more than ideology: Each retailer has a stake in the election's outcome in areas from health care to the minimum wage to the way unions can organize workforces.
Kerry, 60, a four-term senator, pledges to induce more employers to insure workers with a $257 billion proposal calling for the government to pay most so-called catastrophic health-care costs -- only for companies that provide comprehensive coverage. He'd raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to join unions.
Those policies may benefit Costco and hurt Wal-Mart.
Issaquah, Washington-based Costco offers comprehensive health insurance to most of its 78,000 U.S. employees, making it eligible for Kerry's plan, said Kerry's top domestic policy adviser, Sarah Bianchi, 31. That may cut 10 percent, or $35 million, off its annual health-care premiums.
Not Enough
Wal-Mart's health plan for its 1.3 million U.S. workers is probably not broad enough to qualify for the savings that Kerry's proposal would bring, since it doesn't cover enough workers, said Jason Furman, 33, the Democrat's chief economic-policy adviser. Fewer than half of Wal-Mart's employees are enrolled in the company health plan, according to figures supplied by the retailer.
Costco wouldn't have to raise salaries with Kerry's proposal to increase the minimum wage to $7 an hour, from $5.15 now. It already pays hot-dog vendors as much as $16 an hour. The lowest wage it pays -- $10 an hour -- is still higher than Wal-Mart's average wage of $9.96, even after Wal-Mart raised it from $9.64 last month for full-time workers. And the 1.4 million-member Teamsters Union said its workers at Costco have the ``best retail contracts in the country,'' according to Rome Aloise, head of Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, California, which represents 1,000 of the company's workers.
Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart supports the Bush administration's expansion of free-trade agreements and its bid to curtail the number of workers eligible for overtime pay, according to its lobby disclosure reports.
Bush and Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has benefited from the president's opposition to raising the minimum wage, since some employees make less than $7 an hour, and from the Republican-controlled Congress's reluctance to make it easier for workers to unionize. Of 204 supporters of a bill in the House of Representatives that would smooth the way for workers to belong to unions, seven are Republicans. Wal-Mart has no unions; about one-sixth of Costco's workers are represented by labor groups.
``President Bush and his administration have made a real concerted effort to reach out to Wal-Mart and try to understand what our experience is,'' said Allen, 47, the vice president.
Wal-Mart and Costco aren't the only companies in the same industry whose executives are on opposing sides in the election. Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt is backing Kerry, while Internet rival Yahoo! Inc. CEO Terry Semel endorsed Bush, 58. William Harrison, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., is giving more money to Democrats than to Republicans, in contrast to peers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns Cos., federal disclosures show.
81% Republican
What makes the Wal-Mart and Costco rivalry stand out is that their political donations are so partisan and both companies are likely to gain if their party wins in November.
IRS disclosure records show that Sinegal and Costco Chairman Jeffrey Brotman each gave $95,000 last December to the fund- raising arm of America Coming Together, a group organizing voters against Bush, and the Media Fund, which is running anti-Bush advertisements. The two Washington-based groups, known as ``527'' organizations after the tax-code provision under which they were created, report to the IRS, not the Federal Election Commission.
Wal-Mart's political action committee, the biggest company PAC, gave Republicans 81 percent of its $1.3 million in donations in the past two years, a higher proportion than any of the top 25 corporate PACs, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a nonpartisan, Washington-based group that tracks campaign-finance disclosures.
Vice President Dick Cheney underlined Wal-Mart's ties to the White House on May 3 when he visited the retailer's headquarters -- his first talk with a company workforce in the 40 months since he took office, according to the White House Web site.
Praise From Cheney
``This is one of our nation's great companies,'' Cheney said.
Sixty-seven percent of Wal-Mart's stores are in the 30 states that voted for Bush and Cheney in 2000, according to a comparison of store-location figures in the Wal-Mart 2003 annual report and election results. Costco's stores are mostly located on either coast, with 208 of its 321 stores in the higher-wage, more union-friendly 20 states that voted for Democrat Al Gore in 2000.
Investors have profited more from Wal-Mart than Costco. Wal- Mart shares, with dividends reinvested, returned about 11 percent during the past five years, or 2.1 percent a year, compared with a 1.3 percent annual loss for Costco in the same period.
Sam's Club, the Wal-Mart unit that directly competes with Costco, had an operating profit of $1.1 billion on U.S. sales of $34.5 billion in the year to January 2004. Costco's operating profit in the year to August 2003, including international operations, was $1.2 billion on sales of $42.5 billion. Its U.S. sales were $35.2 billion last year.
No `Social Engineer'
Sinegal makes no apologies for Costco's policies, saying higher wages reduce employee turnover, which lowers training costs. ``I'm not a social engineer,'' he said in an interview. ``Paying good wages is simply good business.''
Should Kerry win and enact his health plan, that may also be good for Costco's business.
Under the plan, the government would pay three-quarters of companies' catastrophic health-care costs, defined as expenses of more than $50,000 per illness. That would cut the average company's insurance premium by 10 percent, according to Kenneth Thorpe, an Emory University professor in Atlanta who studied both candidates' coverage plans.
``Our plan is designed to help companies like Costco and many manufacturing companies that are doing the right thing by providing health-care coverage but are having difficulties with rising costs,'' Bianchi said.
Wal-Mart pays two-thirds of the cost of employee health-care premiums, said Susan Chambers, executive vice president for benefits. Costco pays more than 90 percent, Sinegal said. More than three-quarters of Costco employees are enrolled in the company health-care plan compared with 45 percent for Wal-Mart, according to figures provided by Sinegal and Chambers.
`Significant Improvement'
Wal-Mart expects to spend $2.5 billion on health care this year, according to Chambers, meaning it would potentially lose out on $250 million in savings under Kerry's plan should the company fail to qualify for the proposal's benefits.
Chambers defended Wal-Mart's coverage. ``We cover a higher percentage of our workforce than some companies,'' she said. ``Many of our workers come from industries such as fast food, and this is a significant improvement for them. The truth is, we cover a lot of hourly people with our health-insurance plan.''
For Wal-Mart, having to raise wages by $1 an hour for an employee working 30 hours a week would translate into a $1,500-a- year increase per worker, or $150 million per 100,000 workers.
Wal-Mart's average hourly wage doesn't include contributions to 401(K) and profit-sharing plans, spokeswoman Sarah Clark said. The benefit plans add 4 percent a month to an employee's compensation, she said.
`Taking Great Steps'
Some of Wal-Mart's U.S. workers make less than $7 an hour, she said. She wouldn't say how many.
``Wal-Mart's taking great steps to move forward in this area,'' CEO Scott, 55, told 18,000 shareholders and employees at the company's June 4 annual meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The company is facing a class-action lawsuit by female workers who say it has discriminated against them in pay and promotions since 1998.
Wal-Mart's decision to raise wages may help fend off efforts to unionize the company's workers. The 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers is trying to organize Wal-Mart employees, union spokesman Greg Denier said.
Kerry supports a bill in Congress that would allow unions to represent workers after a majority of employees sign cards asking them to join. Under current law, unions can only represent workers after an election, which can take weeks to arrange and be influenced by consultants brought in by the company to oppose the measure, said Marco Trbovich, 62, Kerry's director of labor policy.
Attacking Reputation
``Workers need the right to organize,'' Trbovich said. ``That's particularly true at Wal-Mart.''
All the biggest unions in the U.S., including the Teamsters and the 13 million-member AFL-CIO, a federation that includes the United Food and Commercial Workers, have endorsed Kerry.
``The UFCW is engaged in a very public campaign both to stop our growth or attack our reputation,'' Wal-Mart's Allen said. ``If a candidate gets a lot of support from the UFCW, that's certainly something we have to consider strongly.''
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Executives at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp., competitors in the $76 billion U.S. warehouse-club market, have taken their rivalry to a new level: national politics.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and owner of Sam's Club warehouse stores, gives more money to Republican candidates than any other company. Its top three managers, including Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott, donated the individual maximum $2,000 to President George W. Bush, and Jay Allen, vice president for corporate affairs, raised at least $100,000 to re-elect the president, earning him the Bush campaign's designation of ``Pioneer.''
Wal-Mart -- two-thirds of whose 3,580 stores are in the ``red states'' that voted for Bush in 2000 -- is backing White House policies on everything from trade to limiting overtime pay.
Costco CEO Jim Sinegal, 68, is a Democrat who says Bush's $1.7 trillion in tax cuts unfairly benefit the wealthy. He opposed the Iraq war and supports Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts for president. And he's the only chief executive of a company in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to donate money to independent political groups formed to oust Bush, Internal Revenue Service records show.
``Wal-Mart is extremely strong in Republican strongholds; they are a red-state retailer,'' said Amy Bonkoski, an investment adviser at Cleveland-based National City Corp.'s private-client group, which manages about $26 billion, including Wal-Mart and Costco shares. ``Costco is stronger in Democratic states. Costco is a friend to labor. Unions hate Wal-Mart.''
Costco's Candidate
The differences are based on more than ideology: Each retailer has a stake in the election's outcome in areas from health care to the minimum wage to the way unions can organize workforces.
Kerry, 60, a four-term senator, pledges to induce more employers to insure workers with a $257 billion proposal calling for the government to pay most so-called catastrophic health-care costs -- only for companies that provide comprehensive coverage. He'd raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to join unions.
Those policies may benefit Costco and hurt Wal-Mart.
Issaquah, Washington-based Costco offers comprehensive health insurance to most of its 78,000 U.S. employees, making it eligible for Kerry's plan, said Kerry's top domestic policy adviser, Sarah Bianchi, 31. That may cut 10 percent, or $35 million, off its annual health-care premiums.
Not Enough
Wal-Mart's health plan for its 1.3 million U.S. workers is probably not broad enough to qualify for the savings that Kerry's proposal would bring, since it doesn't cover enough workers, said Jason Furman, 33, the Democrat's chief economic-policy adviser. Fewer than half of Wal-Mart's employees are enrolled in the company health plan, according to figures supplied by the retailer.
Costco wouldn't have to raise salaries with Kerry's proposal to increase the minimum wage to $7 an hour, from $5.15 now. It already pays hot-dog vendors as much as $16 an hour. The lowest wage it pays -- $10 an hour -- is still higher than Wal-Mart's average wage of $9.96, even after Wal-Mart raised it from $9.64 last month for full-time workers. And the 1.4 million-member Teamsters Union said its workers at Costco have the ``best retail contracts in the country,'' according to Rome Aloise, head of Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, California, which represents 1,000 of the company's workers.
Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart supports the Bush administration's expansion of free-trade agreements and its bid to curtail the number of workers eligible for overtime pay, according to its lobby disclosure reports.
Bush and Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has benefited from the president's opposition to raising the minimum wage, since some employees make less than $7 an hour, and from the Republican-controlled Congress's reluctance to make it easier for workers to unionize. Of 204 supporters of a bill in the House of Representatives that would smooth the way for workers to belong to unions, seven are Republicans. Wal-Mart has no unions; about one-sixth of Costco's workers are represented by labor groups.
``President Bush and his administration have made a real concerted effort to reach out to Wal-Mart and try to understand what our experience is,'' said Allen, 47, the vice president.
Wal-Mart and Costco aren't the only companies in the same industry whose executives are on opposing sides in the election. Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt is backing Kerry, while Internet rival Yahoo! Inc. CEO Terry Semel endorsed Bush, 58. William Harrison, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., is giving more money to Democrats than to Republicans, in contrast to peers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns Cos., federal disclosures show.
81% Republican
What makes the Wal-Mart and Costco rivalry stand out is that their political donations are so partisan and both companies are likely to gain if their party wins in November.
IRS disclosure records show that Sinegal and Costco Chairman Jeffrey Brotman each gave $95,000 last December to the fund- raising arm of America Coming Together, a group organizing voters against Bush, and the Media Fund, which is running anti-Bush advertisements. The two Washington-based groups, known as ``527'' organizations after the tax-code provision under which they were created, report to the IRS, not the Federal Election Commission.
Wal-Mart's political action committee, the biggest company PAC, gave Republicans 81 percent of its $1.3 million in donations in the past two years, a higher proportion than any of the top 25 corporate PACs, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a nonpartisan, Washington-based group that tracks campaign-finance disclosures.
Vice President Dick Cheney underlined Wal-Mart's ties to the White House on May 3 when he visited the retailer's headquarters -- his first talk with a company workforce in the 40 months since he took office, according to the White House Web site.
Praise From Cheney
``This is one of our nation's great companies,'' Cheney said.
Sixty-seven percent of Wal-Mart's stores are in the 30 states that voted for Bush and Cheney in 2000, according to a comparison of store-location figures in the Wal-Mart 2003 annual report and election results. Costco's stores are mostly located on either coast, with 208 of its 321 stores in the higher-wage, more union-friendly 20 states that voted for Democrat Al Gore in 2000.
Investors have profited more from Wal-Mart than Costco. Wal- Mart shares, with dividends reinvested, returned about 11 percent during the past five years, or 2.1 percent a year, compared with a 1.3 percent annual loss for Costco in the same period.
Sam's Club, the Wal-Mart unit that directly competes with Costco, had an operating profit of $1.1 billion on U.S. sales of $34.5 billion in the year to January 2004. Costco's operating profit in the year to August 2003, including international operations, was $1.2 billion on sales of $42.5 billion. Its U.S. sales were $35.2 billion last year.
No `Social Engineer'
Sinegal makes no apologies for Costco's policies, saying higher wages reduce employee turnover, which lowers training costs. ``I'm not a social engineer,'' he said in an interview. ``Paying good wages is simply good business.''
Should Kerry win and enact his health plan, that may also be good for Costco's business.
Under the plan, the government would pay three-quarters of companies' catastrophic health-care costs, defined as expenses of more than $50,000 per illness. That would cut the average company's insurance premium by 10 percent, according to Kenneth Thorpe, an Emory University professor in Atlanta who studied both candidates' coverage plans.
``Our plan is designed to help companies like Costco and many manufacturing companies that are doing the right thing by providing health-care coverage but are having difficulties with rising costs,'' Bianchi said.
Wal-Mart pays two-thirds of the cost of employee health-care premiums, said Susan Chambers, executive vice president for benefits. Costco pays more than 90 percent, Sinegal said. More than three-quarters of Costco employees are enrolled in the company health-care plan compared with 45 percent for Wal-Mart, according to figures provided by Sinegal and Chambers.
`Significant Improvement'
Wal-Mart expects to spend $2.5 billion on health care this year, according to Chambers, meaning it would potentially lose out on $250 million in savings under Kerry's plan should the company fail to qualify for the proposal's benefits.
Chambers defended Wal-Mart's coverage. ``We cover a higher percentage of our workforce than some companies,'' she said. ``Many of our workers come from industries such as fast food, and this is a significant improvement for them. The truth is, we cover a lot of hourly people with our health-insurance plan.''
For Wal-Mart, having to raise wages by $1 an hour for an employee working 30 hours a week would translate into a $1,500-a- year increase per worker, or $150 million per 100,000 workers.
Wal-Mart's average hourly wage doesn't include contributions to 401(K) and profit-sharing plans, spokeswoman Sarah Clark said. The benefit plans add 4 percent a month to an employee's compensation, she said.
`Taking Great Steps'
Some of Wal-Mart's U.S. workers make less than $7 an hour, she said. She wouldn't say how many.
``Wal-Mart's taking great steps to move forward in this area,'' CEO Scott, 55, told 18,000 shareholders and employees at the company's June 4 annual meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The company is facing a class-action lawsuit by female workers who say it has discriminated against them in pay and promotions since 1998.
Wal-Mart's decision to raise wages may help fend off efforts to unionize the company's workers. The 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers is trying to organize Wal-Mart employees, union spokesman Greg Denier said.
Kerry supports a bill in Congress that would allow unions to represent workers after a majority of employees sign cards asking them to join. Under current law, unions can only represent workers after an election, which can take weeks to arrange and be influenced by consultants brought in by the company to oppose the measure, said Marco Trbovich, 62, Kerry's director of labor policy.
Attacking Reputation
``Workers need the right to organize,'' Trbovich said. ``That's particularly true at Wal-Mart.''
All the biggest unions in the U.S., including the Teamsters and the 13 million-member AFL-CIO, a federation that includes the United Food and Commercial Workers, have endorsed Kerry.
``The UFCW is engaged in a very public campaign both to stop our growth or attack our reputation,'' Wal-Mart's Allen said. ``If a candidate gets a lot of support from the UFCW, that's certainly something we have to consider strongly.''
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (July 20, 2004) - Representatives of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 588 here and Albertsons, Safeway, Kroger and several smaller retailers have agreed to extend worker contracts through July 31 and on a day-to-day basis thereafter, according to Albertsons. The union confirmed the contract extension, but did not indicate any specific dates. The contracts expired July 17; the extension will be subject to a seven-day cancellation notice by either side, according to Albertsons. The negotiations involve approximately 19,000 union members at 335 stores extending from the Merced River about 100 miles south of here to the California-Oregon border 250 miles to the north.
At least 6 million workers will lose their right to overtime pay under final Bush administration rules scheduled to take effect Aug. 23, according to a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis released July 14—one day after former high-ranking Labor Department officials reported that the new overtime rules will substantially erode the overtime rights of America’s workers.
“It’s hard to take the administration’s claims of wanting to help workers seriously, when those who will lose outnumber those who will be helped by 16 to one,” says EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey, author of the report Longer Hours, Less Pay.
The Bush administration’s changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) would establish new rules for employers to determine if workers are eligible for overtime pay. When the proposed rules were announced last year, the Bush administration claimed it was streamlining the overtime regulations and expanding the number of workers eligible for overtime pay. But workers, their unions and other groups charged the move would deny millions of workers their overtime pay.
Under the new rules, workers who earn as little as $23,660 per year—about $5,000 above the poverty line for a family of four—could see their jobs reclassified as ineligible for overtime pay.
The rules changes will affect workers throughout the economy. For example, as many as 2 million administrative workers will lose their overtime rights under a rule change that makes “team leaders” ineligible for overtime pay, even when they do not supervise others on the team, the EPI report says.
The new rules also will end overtime eligibility for some 900,000 workers without college or graduate degrees who will be newly classified as exempt professionals—nearly 1.4 million workers reclassified as executives under the new rules, another 130,000 chefs, sous chefs and cooks, 160,000 financial services workers and 117,000 teachers and computer programmers—according to EPI.
The EPI report came on the same day House Democrats renewed their efforts to protect overtime pay. The House Appropriations subcommittee, on a party-line vote July 14, defeated 31–29 an amendment that would have required the U.S. Labor Department to implement the old overtime rules but with the new adjusted minimum salary levels. In this way, workers would be guaranteed that they would not lose overtime eligibility. Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), who sponsored the amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill, is expected to offer the amendment again on the House floor next week. A similar amendment was narrowly defeated last year in the House.
Former Labor Officials Say Bush Overtime Pay Take-Away Will Hurt Working Families
The EPI analysis comes a day after a new report by former Department of Labor officials, which finds the Bush administration’s overtime pay take-away will harm working families and take overtime pay from “large numbers” of workers.
The three authors of the report released July 13 held high-level positions at the Department of Labor under both Republicans and Democrats beginning in the 1980s under President Reagan. All three dealt extensively with the FLSA and wage and hour issues during their government service.
The independent experts conclude that “...implementation of these new regulations will harm rather than promote and protect the interests of U.S. workers and their families.”
Stop the Bush overtime pay take-away.
New York Times - By PAUL KRUGMAN
If past patterns are any guide, about one in three Americans will go without health insurance for some part of the next two years. They won't, for the most part, be the persistently poor, who are usually covered by Medicaid. They will be members of working families with breadwinners who have jobs without medical benefits or who have been laid off.
Many Americans fear the loss of health insurance. Last week I described John Kerry's health plan. What's the Bush administration's plan?
First, it offers a tax credit for low- and middle-income families who don't have health coverage through employers. That credit helps them purchase health insurance. The credit would be $3,000 for a family of four with an income of $25,000; for an income of $40,000, it would fall to $1,714. Last year the average premium for families of four covered by employers was more than $9,000.
A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the tax credit would reduce the number of uninsured, 44 million people in 2002, by 1.8 million. So it wouldn't help a great majority of families unable to afford insurance. For comparison, an independent assessment of the Kerry plan by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University says that it would reduce the number of uninsured by 26.7 million.
The other main component of the Bush plan involves "health savings accounts." The prescription drug bill the Bush administration pushed through Congress last year had a number of provisions unrelated to Medicare. One of them allowed people who purchase insurance policies with high deductibles, generally at least $2,000 per family, to shelter income from taxes by setting up special accounts for medical expenses. This year, the administration proposed making the premiums linked to these accounts fully tax-deductible.
Although the 2005 budget presents that new deduction under the heading "Helping the uninsured," health savings accounts don't seem to have much to do with the needs of the families likely to find themselves without health insurance. For one thing, such families need more protection than a plan with a $2,000 deductible provides. Furthermore, the tax advantages of health savings accounts would be small for those families most at risk of losing health insurance, who are overwhelmingly in low tax brackets.
But for people whose income puts them in high tax brackets, these accounts are a very good deal; making the premiums deductible turns them into a great deal. In other words, health savings accounts will offer the already affluent, who don't have problems getting health insurance, yet another tax shelter. Meanwhile, health savings accounts, in the view of many experts, will actually increase the number of uninsured.
This perverse effect shouldn't be too surprising: unless they are carefully designed, medical policies often have side consequences that worsen the problems they supposedly address. For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that one-third of the retirees who now have drug coverage through their former employers will lose that coverage as a result of the Bush prescription drug bill and will be forced to accept inferior coverage from Medicare.
In the case of health savings accounts, the key side consequence is a reduced incentive for companies to insure their workers. When companies provide group health insurance, healthier employees implicitly subsidize their sicker colleagues. They're willing to do this largely because the employer's contributions to health insurance are a tax-free form of compensation, but only if the same plan is offered to all employees.
Tax-free health savings accounts and premiums would provide healthier and wealthier employees an incentive to opt out, accepting higher paychecks instead, and would lead to higher insurance premiums for those who remain in traditional plans. This would cause some companies to stop providing health insurance, or raise employee contributions to a level some workers can't afford.
The difference couldn't be starker. Mr. Kerry offers a health care plan that would extend coverage to most of those now uninsured, paid for by rolling back tax cuts for those with incomes over $200,000. President Bush offers a tax credit that would extend coverage to fewer than 5 percent of the uninsured, plus a new tax break for the affluent that would actually increase the number of uninsured. As I said last week, I don't see how Mr. Bush can win this debate.
UFCW 588-Northern California and supermarket employers have agreed to extend their current labor contract past its July 17 expiration date. The extension allows 19,000 union members to continue working while negotiators carry on with the difficult task of reaching a new agreement.
The terms of the old contract will remain in place as long as both sides agree to the extension.
"Our goal is to negotiate a fair and equitable agreement without a strike," Jack L. Loveall, president of UFCW 588-Northern California, said. "That is what we are working very hard to achieve."
The contract involves 335 stores operated by Safeway (NYSE:SWY - News), Albertson's (NYSE:ABS - News), Ralphs and Foodsco (owned by Kroger Co., NYSE:KR), Save Mart and smaller chains and independent stores from the California-Oregon border in the north to the Merced River in the south.
Health benefits, pension funding and workplace protections are among the key issues being discussed at the negotiations, which are at an undisclosed location.
If either side decides to end the contract extension, affected Union members will vote on the latest proposal by the employers. Approval would require a simple majority of voting members. A vote of two-thirds or more to reject the proposal would authorize Union members to strike.
South state strike's bitterness weighs on both sides locally.
By Dale Kasler -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, July 14, 2004
SAN DIMAS - The big Southern California supermarket strike changed Bob and Beverly Lindenmayer's shopping habits forever. They used to buy groceries at Vons, a Safeway subsidiary, but now take their business to Stater Bros., a chain that wasn't struck.
We used to shop at Vons faithfully," Bob Lindenmayer said earlier this week as he loaded his car trunk with groceries from Stater's San Dimas store, east of Los Angeles. Describing himself as angry at both the stores and labor unions, he added: "Ever since they pulled that crap, we haven't been back."
The lingering bitterness of Southern California's epic supermarket strike could prove critical in contract negotiations that might reach a climax this week in the Sacramento area.
More than four months after the end of the south state strike, Safeway, Ralphs and Albertsons are still toting up their losses and struggling to recapture lost customers. Although many shoppers have come back since the walkout and lockout ended Feb. 29, quite a few have stayed away - out of anger or because they became accustomed to shopping elsewhere.
Labor union members are licking their wounds, too, having coughed up contract concessions after enduring a walkout of nearly five months.
Store employees say morale is low and tension high.
"Both sides lost, really," said Gus Freire, a veteran clerk at a Vons store in Glendora.
The economic aftershock from Southern California could foster a spirit of compromise in the Sacramento area, where a contract covering more than 15,000 grocery workers is due to expire Saturday. Sacramento-area talks include the same three grocery operators involved in Southern California, plus West Sacramento-based Raley's.
"I don't think (a strike) is a foregone conclusion. Both sides have learned from the Southern California experience, and no one is eager to repeat it," said Kent Wong, director of UCLA's Center for Labor Research and Education.
Officials with Local 588 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents thousands of grocery workers from Modesto to the Oregon border, didn't return calls for this story. But in a memo posted on the local's Web site, President Jack Loveall indicated that the strike could nudge the parties to a peaceful resolution in Northern California.
"It is clear to us that employers want deep cuts in our contract," he wrote. "However, to date we have not been faced with a showdown mentality.
"Because of the bravery and sacrifice of the heroic Southern California members, the employers may not be as hard-nosed as they were before the strike."
However, Safeway Vice President Kevin Herglotz said each contract is "completely different" and the strike fallout wouldn't necessarily influence the Sacramento-area talks.
He added that Safeway and other traditional grocers are facing the same issues in Northern California as they did in the south: spiraling health-care costs and increasing competition from the likes of nonunion Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is making inroads into the California grocery market.
The grocery chains say they're confident that customers are returning to the fold in Southern California.
"We continue to see steady progress, our sales improving," said Herglotz.
Since the strike ended, an uneasy truce has taken hold in the nation's supermarket industry. Labor and management have signed new contracts, usually bringing some sort of concessions from labor. The specter of Southern California has been everywhere.
"Neither side wants to go through that again," said Jim McLaughlin, president of a UFCW local in Arizona that just signed a contract with Safeway and Kroger.
Yet there's no guarantee of peace in Sacramento. The Wal-Mart presence and the richness of Local 588's contract - considered one of the most generous for grocery workers in the nation - mean the possibility of a strike remains high. Workers in the Sacramento area make $8 to $22 an hour. For health insurance, they pay no monthly premiums and make co-payments of no more than $10.
Grocers achieved many of their cost-reduction goals in Southern California by implementing a two-tiered contract that means lower pay and less-generous health benefits for new hires, said investment analysts. Although the chains didn't eliminate the cost gap with their competition, "they got a lot of help," said analyst Andrew Wolf of BB&T Capital Markets in Richmond, Va.
Yet Wolf said the grocers didn't have an easy time of it. "The price was very high," he said.
The stores stayed open during the strike, staffed by managers and replacement workers. But the strike wiped out hundreds of millions of dollars in profits - $224 million at Safeway alone - as consumers headed to stores that weren't being struck. Those included stores like Stater Bros. and Gelson's, which signed "me-too" contracts with the union. The stores weren't struck, and management agreed to go along with whatever contract was signed. UFCW leader Loveall has said he doesn't plan to sign any "me-too" deals in the Sacramento area.
Retail industry consultant Burt Flickinger III said Safeway subsidiaries Vons and Pavilions are struggling the most to regain customers because the union targeted Safeway as the villain of the strike.
For Southern California shoppers, staying out of the strike stores was often a simple choice. "I didn't want to cross a picket line," said Adriana Cuevas of Covina, a former steadfast Albertsons shopper who was buying groceries at the San Dimas Stater Bros. the other day.
Cuevas, like many shoppers, has resumed shopping at Albertsons but now also does business at Stater Bros., Costco, and Smart & Final.
A Field Poll, conducted in association with Whittier College's Consumer Activism Project, suggested that thousands of Southern Californians haven't come back to their old stores.
The survey, taken in late May, said the percentage of Southern Californians shopping "very frequently" at the strike stores had fallen from 47 percent before the walkout to 32 percent.
Their competitors have reaped a huge windfall. In the six months ending March 28, Stater Bros.' profits went to $30.3 million from $3.8 million a year earlier. Gains also were reported by Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's, Costco, ethnic markets and the upscale Gelson's.
How long it will last isn't clear. Stater Bros., for example, said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it has no way of knowing how many of the new customers will stay with the chain. But Costco spokesman Richard Galanti said his company seems to have retained roughly half of the new business it won during the strike.
The stores involved in the labor dispute have gone out of their way to win back shoppers; analysts say Albertsons in particular has been aggressively discounting. But random interviews with Southern Californians suggest that the stores have a ways to go.
A few said anger with management is keeping them away. Others said they've forgiven management but have gotten used to new stores. And some said they're motivated by anger against the workers.
Joe Kongaika, shopping at Island Pacific, an Asian supermarket in West Covina, said he had considered long-term employees at his neighborhood Albertsons as his friends. But when he crossed a picket line to get cash out of the in-store bank, the verbal abuse from those picketing made him swear off the friendships.
"After the strike, it was over - we stopped going," he said.
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Western Nevada County residents who do their heavy grocery shopping on weekends might want to fill up their carts earlier this week.
A contract covering 19,000 unionized grocery workers in 335 stores from Modesto to the Oregon border expires at the end of Saturday, but neither side has said what it will do if the deadline passes without a new agreement.
Grocery store chains in Nevada County covered by the contract include Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger, which operates Ralphs in this area.
Raley's is also involved in the negotiations, but its Grass Valley store is not unionized. SPD Markets' contract doesn't expire for another year, a spokeswoman said. Grocery Outlet in Grass Valley is nonunion.
A spokesman for the region's major grocer union said Tuesday a strike could be avoided if both sides agree to extend the current contract beyond the expiration date. Union members will vote on management's final offer, with a simple majority required for approval. A vote of two-thirds or more to reject the proposal authorizes union leaders to call a strike.
The current contract with Local 588 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union expires less than five months after the end of a 139-day strike and lockout of nearly 70,000 grocery clerks in Southern California. In the end, the grocery chains lost millions of dollars, and the workers agreed to increased health care costs and a two-tier pay system.
While neither side will discuss the specifics of the current negotiations, there are indications that management is seeking similar concessions in Northern California.
Jack Loveall, president of Local 588, reports on the union's Web site that health care is a major issue and that the union is fighting for a contract "that is free of the divisiveness of a two-tier system."
Loveall didn't reveal the union's strategy regarding a strike, except to say it will be "unpredictable and untraditional ... but we know that if we have to fight, we will. Withholding our labor is our last, final and most effective leverage."
Members of Local 588 make from $8 to $22 an hour, depending on the job and seniority, about $1.50 an hour more than their Southern California counterparts. In addition, they pay no premiums for health insurance and are subject to co-pays of $10 for office and emergency room visits.
Under their new contract, Southern California clerks may have to pay $15 a week in premiums in the third year of the contract, while new hires will pay $9 a week for reduced benefits.
North American break-through is expected soon:
Wal-Mart workers in Canada prepare to vote for trade union representation through UFCW
Workers in Wal-Mart stores in Canada will soon be able to vote for trade union representation through UNI Commerce affiliated UFCW. Hundreds of UFCW union cards have been signed in Terrace, British Columbia and in Jonquière, Quebec. With normal employers, this would be enough to secure union recognition in these stores. Not with Wal-Mart - here, the company forces a Labour Relations Board election, which gives it a chance to launch a union-busting operation.
"We're delighted that Wal-Mart employees in Terrace have decided to join our union," said UFCW Canada Local 1518 President Brooke Sundin to GLOBEANDMAIL.COM. "Given Wal-Mart's well-documented hostility towards unions, they've taken a very courageous step in their efforts to get better working conditions."
In Quebec, UFCW narrowly lost a recognition vote at the Jonquière store in April. Michael J. Fraser, the union's national director for Canada was not worried: "It's only our second vote at a Wal-Mart," he said, commenting on the defeat.
"It took a number of votes before we organized our first Loblaws and Provigo and Safeway. The same thing will happen here. With the Wal-Mart campaign it's no longer a question of 'if' but 'when', and it will be sooner than later", he added.
"The tide is turning against Wal-Mart and we're not going away," said Fraser. "The Jonquière workers who want a union can make a new application here in a few months."
Now, the UFCW Local has applied to the Quebec Labour Relations Board, asking for the right to represent the more than 100 workers of this store. "There have been an enormous number of people who have reflected on things", said the Local's president Marie-Josee Lemieux to canada.com, explaining that many additional union cards had been signed after the last vote. She was confident that the narrow loss in April would now be turned into a clear vote for union representation.
UFCW has 230,000 members in Canada.
Opponents vocal, but planning board holds most of the cards
by George Spohr, Journal Staff
07/09/04: POTSDAM — Controversy regarding Wal-Mart’s impending store opening here has again polarized this St. Lawrence County college town.
The company’s efforts to open a store here in the late-1990s failed when the Village Board was unable to strike a deal that would have offset the cost of bringing village water and sewer services to the store. At the time, Wal-Mart tucked its tail between its legs and built stores elsewhere, such as Massena.
But six to seven months ago, a private developer came to the Town Board saying a big-box store was looking to build a store on Route 11 between Potsdam and Canton, Supervisor Marie Regan recalls.
It didn’t take long for Potsdam to realize the big-box would have housed Wal-Mart, and tempers began to flare. As in many Upstate municipalities that have grappled with the prospect of Wal-Mart coming to town, those here in Potsdam against the store fall into two factions:
• Those who are repulsed by what they say are the company’s anti-labor policies and business practices.
• Those who fear the demise of independently owned stores that would lie in Wal-Mart’s shadows.
Wal-Mart’s public relations office referred reporters to a spokeswoman who is on vacation this week. That spokeswoman’s voicemail referred reporters to the company’s community affairs office. Employees there referred reporters back to the public relations office, which did not return calls.
Potsdam, as a whole, doesn’t seem to be entirely opposed to Wal-Mart, Regan explains. She says the two groups who oppose Wal-Mart — and who have done everything from write letters to the editor to local newspapers to getting petitions signed to block the store’s opening — are part of “a small, but very vocal — I believe — minority in the community.”
The Town Board can’t do much to block or help Wal-Mart’s entrance other than hold the company to the letter of the law, Regan says. The town’s planning board actually will have more say in the process leading up to Wal-Mart’s construction than the town would, since the previously sticky issues of water and sewer and zoning are now non-issues. (Wal-Mart’s developing its own water and sewer system, and the area’s already zoned for commercial development.)
There’s a strong case to be made for allowing Wal-Mart into Potsdam, Regan explains. She sites a Merwin Rural Services Institute study conducted a couple of years ago that says Potsdam is losing $500,000 weekly to Wal-Mart and grocery stores in Massena.
“Merchants are already competing [with] Wal-Mart,” Regan says. The case could be argued that the store would “at least make it convenient for shoppers in Potsdam — and keep some of that lost tax money here.”
The issue is so polarizing that every new statistic released by Wal-Mart’s developers causes a volley of back-and-forth arguments.
Statistic No. 1: Wal-Mart will create 400 new jobs when it opens its Potsdam store.
Supporters say those are 400 jobs that will lower unemployment in the area.
Opponents say those 400 jobs aren’t all full-time, and Wal-Mart doesn’t give its part-timers health insurance. Supporters say neither do most of the independently owned stores, either.
Statistic No. 2: Wal-Mart will generate between $200,000 and $250,000 in additional tax revenue for the town, school district, and county.
Supporters say that money will lighten the tax burden of residents and business owners.
Opponents say the number doesn’t take into account the lost tax revenues from stores Wal-Mart will be putting out of business.
“The truth probably lies halfway,” Regan admits. “People see it as black-and-white, and it’s gray. All I can say is this is a democracy. They have the right to come in, and basically what the Town Board and I, as supervisor, have to do is hold them to the letter of the law to the highest degree.”
Company representatives contacted Regan asking for her help in minimizing resistance to the new store. “I told them that I was not going to tell them how to do it,” she says. “I told them it was their baby, and anything I told them might help their cause and also might boomerang.”
Those who have contacted the Town Board about Wal-Mart have been “a lot more pro-” store construction than against it. Regan speculates that those who want Wal-Mart to come to Potsdam don’t want to offend their friends in the business community by making their support public. She says there are a lot of people in the community who can’t always afford to drive to Massena for food, clothing, and medicine.
As for the concerns of the anti-Wal-Mart camp, “I share them to some degree, but a lot of them are people who have the luxury of shopping out-of-town or through the Internet,” Regan says. “They’re more worried about ambiance when others are worried about what it costs them to drive to Massena.”
Trying to head off a drive to organize its Storm Lake, Iowa plant, Tyson Foods contends the prospective union wants to exclude some classes of workers from voting.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 440, which represents union workers at Tyson's Dension, Iowa plant, have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board, calling for an election at the Storm Lake pork plant. The NLBR resumed a hearing Thursday to determine which class of workers should be eligible to vote.
Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson contends the union wants to "cherry pick'' among the 1,700 plant employees, excluding groups who normally are permitted to vote, including maintenance and training workers, as well as those who serve on the plant's safety committee.
While it's up to employees if they want union representation, Tyson officials point out the workers have done just fine without it. Mickelson said pay for the Storm Lake plant workers is already higher than at the company's unionized plants and benefits are the same.
"We don't believe a third party is needed to intervene in the relationship with our team members,'' he said.
A woman who answered the phone at Local 440's office in Denison said no union leaders were available Thursday to comment.
The current five-year contract at Tyson's largest unionized plant, in Dakota City, expires Aug. 8. Negotiators for Tyson and UFCW Local 222, which represents more than 3,500 workers at the beef plant, opened talks on a new contract.
The Dakota City plant, built by IBP inc. in the mid-1960s, has a history of labor unrest. Workers struck five times between 1969 and 1986, and some walkouts turned violent. There were incidents of firebombings and sabotage in 1969, and in 1982 the National Guard and state troopers were called for crowd control.
But the last three contracts, in 1991, 1995 and 1999, were ratified without a work stoppage.
"We're optimistic a new labor agreement will be reached without any labor dispute or any labor disruption,'' Mickelson said. "The last several contracts at Dakota City were ratified without a strike, and we're hopeful labor peace will continue.''
Marvin Harrington, president of UFCW Local 222, was in bargaining sessions Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
Also Thursday, negotiations resumed in Cherokee, Iowa, where more than 600 union employees at a Tyson retail detail plant have been working without a contract since May 21. Union workers overwhelmingly rejected what Tyson described as its "last, best and final offer."
The UFCW Local 179 contends Tyson is pushing a plan that would freeze wages, make health insurance coverage unaffordable and undermine their pension plans. The company said its proposal is aimed at bringing wages and benefits at the plant more in line with other Tyson-operated plants in the region. IBP, which merged with Tyson three years ago, acquired the Cherokee plant from Foodbrands America in 1997.