Walmart: Save Money, Bust Unions
A recent story in the Montreal Gazette reports Wal-Mart is on the verge of closing a Tire and Lube shop in Canada that's trying
to unionize. Wal-Mart has pulled this same move twice before: once with a meat cutting department at a
store in Texas, and one other time at another store in Jonquière, Canada. Despite the company's fervent opposition to unions in North America, however, Wal-Mart is currently signing collective
bargaining agreements with retail unions in China. Read more about Wal-Mart's long history of anti-union activity in our new fact sheet.
- Human Rights Watch Releases Report On Wal-Mart And Unionbusting. In 2007, the respected human rights watchdog group, Human Rights Watch, released a report which lambasted Wal-Mart’s unionbusting policies and practices in the United States. According to the report, “while many American companies use weak U.S. laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus.” [Human Rights Watch “Discounting Rights, May 2007]
- Wall Street Journal Reports Wal-Mart Warns Of Democratic Win. More recently, it was revealed that Wal-Mart has been summoning up its hourly supervisors to warn them about the unionization that might happen if Democrats won the November election. One supervisor said, “I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote.” Workers say, they used intimidation by stating all the downside effects of unionization and warning them if the Employee Free Choice Act passed, it would speed up the union process. [Wall Street Journal, 8/1/08]
