Commerce
Home Page

Commerce
work in multinational
companies

Wal-Mart pages

UFCW

In today's US media, Wal-Mart reports on Christmas sales, which commentators find disappointing. Same store sales were up only 2.2 per cent from last year, whereas the company's own estimate had been between 2 and 4 per cent.

 It is not only these Korean workers who are angry at Wal-Mart's bad behaviour against its workers. Perhaps the poor Christmas sales performance comes as a disappointment to the company's management, but should otherwise be no surprise. Last year revealed more and more clearly that the Bentonville emperor did really not have any clothes, however much the spin teams established at headquarters invested in their make-believe public relations games.

Wal-Mart "is on track to post its weakest December sales growth in five years", the New York Times comments this morning. The same newspaper reports on a leading US stock market analyst saying that Wal-Mart's original 2 to 4 per cent growth estimate "was not all that impressive to begin with".

Huge damages for labour law violations

The Bentonville Arkansas based multinational has not had a good year. Just before Christmas, Wal-Mart received the most recent blow as a California court ordered it to pay 172 million dollars in damages for having denied 108,000 workers their statutory lunch breaks.

The court decision by the California Superior Court in Alameda County, not far away from San Francisco, may be just a beginning. The company's bad behaviour against its own personnel is catching up. Share prices are down, and other class action suits are looming.

The lawsuit that accuses Wal-Mart of systematically discriminating women workers could be particularly damaging. Covering millions of female employees over several years, the case could turn into the biggest class action legal process in history. If the women would win their day in court, the Bentonville multinational could have to pay huge compensations, painful even for the largest retailer - and company - in the world.

Illegal immigrant workers as cheap labour

In its quest for what could be called 'low wages, always" Wal-Mart has regularly got caught for breaking the laws. Once again, just before Christmas, the company was found to use illegal immigrant labour, which would of course be less expensive than hiring on the open labour market. This time, it was a subcontractor in Nebraska who had illegally mployed 14 workers to install shelves in a Wal-Mart distribution center.

In March last year, the retail multinational chose to pay 11 million dollars rather than to have to go to court after it had employed illegal Czech immigrants as janitors in its stores, under sub-standard conditions. Just before, labour inspection authorities had found out that the company was using young workers for dangerous tasks, and was thus in violation of child labour laws.

Rather close the store than accept collective agreement

Wal-Mart's brutal and ugly face was revealed as it decided to close its store in Canadian De Jonquière last April, rather than allowing its workers to conclude a collective agreement through their trade union, UNI Commerce affiliate UFCW. Only a few weeks ago, the Quebec Labour Relations Board made the expected decision that this was illegal, and awarded the workers concerned a compensation.

In Germany, where the Wal-Mart workers are well organised in their trade union ver.di, workers are better protected against the kind of bullying which Wal-Mart is so often caught of at home. Flying in union busting teams from Bentonville whenever workers are suspected to vote for joining their union UFCW is indeed a logical if also bizarre part of the company's resolve to pay lower wages and give less benefits and thus gain a competitive advantage. Our picture, from a few years back, show a Wal-Mart works council meeting in Hamburg, where also UFCW and UNI Commerce participated.

It is no wonder, that voices are increasingly raised even in the United States, calling for Wal-Mart to change its unsocial behaviour. WakeUpWalMart.com, a UFCW linked campaign, has picked up a strong momentum during the year, as have other critical voices both within the union movement and outside it.

This has forced the company itself to beef up its public relations campaigning, and sending its CEO Lee Scott out on the road to campaign for the Bentonville giant. Close to the end of the year, Wal-Mart even succeeded to scrape together a support committee to participate in its public cheerleading efforts.

The think-tank that was established last year to run the retail giant's public relations struggle from its Bentonville headquarters will have a hard time to peddle its message, which builds on a rather empty foundation.

A choice between eating and paying children's medical costs

Robert Greenwald's documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" came out on the DVD markets last year, and is a real eye-opener for the American public. It gives a voice to the thousands and thousands of small traders whose livelihoods and lives have been so brutally disturbed by the arrival of the predatory giant.

Greenwald's film also tells the stark stories about Wal-Mart families, who need to choose between eating or paying their children's medical bills. This makes the company's claims of being good for low income Americans sound both hollow and indecent.

In fact, many US States are introducing legislation that would force the Bentonville multinational to take its responsibility in the same way as other employers are doing, instead of making taxpayers finance the medical costs of their workers' children.

Maryland lawmakers try to override governor's veto next Monday

The State of Maryland will send an interesting message in the week to come. Here, the law has already been passed by the elected decision-makers, but was then vetoed by Governor Robert L. Ehrlich. When the General Assembly reconvenes its work in Annapolis on 11 January, its democratic majority will attempt to override the veto and finally enact the law.

Wal-Mart's arrogant approach to the American democratic system is well illustrated by the Maryland health bill veto. A senior manager from Bentonville was benignly present when Governor Ehrlich signed his veto. Not surprisingly, he had been one of the republican recipients of important election support from the company. Wal-Mart has indeed emerged as one of the staunchest supporters of the George W. Bush administration, which has also been on a steep downhill road with regard to voter support.

Walmartization threatens world-wide working standards

Although Wal-Mart is still largely US based, awareness of its bad behaviour is spreading fast also abroad. Walmartization of working life is seen as a real risk all over the world. This would mean smaller incomes, lower benefits, worse conditions, less respect - and no unions to protect workers against it.

Carolyn Sapp, well known in the United States as a former Miss America and today as an active campaigner for women's and children's rights told last years UNI World Congress about the plight of Wal-Mart's workers in the United States. Leaders from three large European commerce trade unions - Jos Brocken of FNV Bondgenoten, Netherlands (left), Erwin De Deyn of SETCA-BBTK, Belgium, and Ulrich Dalibor of ver.di, Germany - are part of the growing UNI Commerce network that brings this message also to the outside world. For 22 June 2006, a first UNI Commerce Global Union Action Day is being planned.

Last year saw the first real street manifestation abroad to support Wal-Mart's North American workers. "People Angry at Wal-Mart Globally", the Korean workers said on their posters, while their t-shirts demanded the company to change. The Seoul demonstration had also a local message - Wal-Mart must accept that it workers join their trade union to be able to defend their rights.

An equally clear message came from Denmark, on the other side of the world. While important pensions funds got rid of their Wal-Mart shares, the Danish commerce union made it clear that the walmartization concept is not welcome to its developed European labour market.

A recent conference in Copenhagen, where also UFCW participated side by side with local unionists, employers and politicians, sent a clear message to Bentonville - either you change, or you stay out. Wal-Mart should indeed listen carefully to this: Ten years ago another US retail multinational was driven out of the whole of Scandinavia by the commerce trade unions, and the reason was exactly the same.

Global UNI Commerce - UFCW campaign for decent work gains momentum

The new year will indeed reinforce this message. Either Wal-Mart wakes up and starts to behave, or its troubles will continue. There is no question about it, WakeUpWalMart.com and other campaigns continue to gain strength and support at home. In the outside world, commercial workers and their supporters are closing ranks behind the joint UNI Commerce - UFCW global campaign for decent work and trade union rights.

Walmartization of working life will just not be accepted, and neither will the Bentonville giant itself if it continues to be a "Working Poor Maker", as the workers in Seoul described it. And as the Christmas sales in the United States showed, many customers have indeed elected to go to other stores.