WP:Wal-Mart Leaves Bitter Chill:Quebec Store Closes After Vote to Unionize

[DeepModem Mom]

Wal-Mart Leaves Bitter Chill
Quebec Store Closes After Vote to Unionize

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 14, 2005; Page E01


....The retailing behemoth, whose $10 billion annual profits are based on low prices, low expenses and its relentless pace of store openings, announced it will shut the doors here May 6 after workers voted to make this the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America.

The closure will leave 190 bitter employees out of work, the town uneasy over the future of unions, and the mayor angry at the company. Supporters of organized labor also say it serves as a warning for workers at other Wal-Mart stores who might contemplate defying founder Sam Walton's sharp distaste for unions....

***

The world's largest retail chain has fiercely and successfully resisted unionization attempts at its 3,600 stores in the United States. Its closest call ended in Texas in 2000 when the store eliminated its meat department after 11 meat cutters voted to join a union. United Food and Commercial Workers is mounting a fresh campaign to organize Wal-Mart workers in the United States, a push it says has been given impetus by recent legal action and a former company vice president's contention that he surreptitiously organized anti-union activities.

In Canada, the battle has been pitched, pitting the country's still-healthy union movement against what is now its largest retailer. While union membership in the United States dropped to 12.5 percent of workers in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, it was 28.6 percent in Canada. Since entering the country 11 years ago by buying the failing Woolco chain, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. now takes 52 percent of the retail market share in Canada, and is opening around 30 stores a year. It earns three times as much revenue per square foot of store space as Zellers Inc., its nearest competitor....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51521-2005Apr13.html

[UCLA Dem]

1. wal-mart truly is an awful company. i refuse to ever shop there.

[Trillo]

2. Maybe the city can blaze a new path,

a plan that other cities can follow.

Unionize 'em all.
:spank:

[Career Prole]

3. Calling bullshit on this line!

"Supporters of organized labor also say it serves as a warning for workers at other Wal-Mart stores who might contemplate defying founder Sam Walton's sharp distaste for unions."

Show me the supporter of organized labor who said that!
That's a union buster line that Sam F**king Walton himself might have written, were he still alive to write anything.

Let it serve instead as encouragement...we know for a fact the money-grubbin' pigs won't close 'em all, so if enough stores make the move simultaneously you'll have 'em by the shorties!

[struggle4progress]

11. Absolutely right. eom

[DulceDecorum]

4. The CEO Union is REALLY screwing us all.

[Horse with no Name]

5. If I were the city

I would make them repay all of the incentives that they were given to open their store there.
They have already come into town, run the litle businesses out, sucked on the kickback tit the city gave them to put their crappy store there, and now that they are leaving, they should have to pay it all back.
Thats just my opinion, although we know it won't happen.

[Nite Owl]

6. A warning?

Not if workers stick together or all of their stores would have to close. Municipalites had better have a clause that whatever they did in the way of tax breaks and road improvements for them would have to be given back too. They move in and expect to pay nothing in taxes and cost the taxpayers money to pay for their low wages.

[truthisfreedom]

7. i have never, nor will i ever, shop at a wal-mart.

sam can go f*** himself.

[goclark]

16. I refuse to step inside that horror

[Chomskyite]

8. A campaign needs to be mounted on ALL the stores at the SAME TIME!

Let them pick up and move then. Let them close their doors then. It's going to take mobilized NATIONAL simulataneous organizations to unionize Walmart. I'd willingly volunteer to do anything I could to get this going.

[Chomskyite]

9. Walmart DID negotiate with and recognize China's union

China's union organized for good in 1949, as I recall. And they have tanks.

I don't think it'll take tanks to unionize America's Walmarts, but it'll take something a little short of it.

[cprise]

14. Undemocratic Communist party hacks.

Right up Walmart's alley I'd say. Their monopolistic instincts are made for each other.

[jimshoes]

10. Well,

it's one way to get WalMart out of your neighborhood.

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. What did they expect to happen?

A few years ago the butchers at one Wal-Mart voted to unionize. Wal-Mart responded outsourcing all of its meat departments. The only way a rational Wal-Mart employee would vote for a union would be if he didn't wnat his job anymore.

[napi21]

13. Isn't this the store that started this in Canada?

I think this was the first one, and when the vote was taken, WM said it was an unprofitable store and they were going to close it.

After that, there were 2 other Canadian stores who voted to unionize, WM fought it, and it went to court. WM refused to release internal documents that would prove the Co was totally against unions, and the court sided with the employees. I'm pretty sure that was just a2 or 3 weeks ago, but it was a separate issue from this one.

Anyone else remember the details?

[applegrove]

15. Bye-bye mon cowboy; adieu mon rodeo n/t