Cross-posted at the Writing on the Wal.
I've used this title for a post before, but it just feels so good to write it again that I can't help myself. And, yes, once again it's in Canada. From CBC via Wake-Up Wal-Mart:
A small group of tire and lube workers at a Surrey Wal-Mart have voted seven to two to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union....
UFCWU spokesperson Andy Neufeld calls the Surrey workers courageous, given the company's stance on unions.
"It's a very difficult choice to make when they understand the kind of pressure that they're put under by Wal-Mart to do everything possible to avoid a union."
Wal-Mart, of course, has a different attitude:
Wal-Mart spokesperson Andrew Pelletier says the company is planning to challenge the Surrey vote results in court.
"We think it is completely unrepresentative and frankly undemocratic to try to carve out from a store of about 250 to 300, seven to 10 workers, and say they should be a separate bargaining unit."
If Wal-Mart is so concerned about democracy, I recommend that they immediately fight for the US to duplicate Canadian labor law, described here by Anthony Bianco in his new book, The Bully of Bentonville:
In Quebec, unlike the United States, a store can be unionized without an employee election. If a majority of the hourly workers sign union cards, and if those signatures then are certified by the provincial government, the law requires management to sit down with union representatives and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. If no agreement is reached a government-appointed arbitrator can impose a contract. In Quebec, the process moves along with an alacrity that tends to blunt the sort of anti-union tactics Wal-Mart puts to such effective use in the United States. In fact, if the necessary number of signatures can be collected covertly, a store can be unionized before management even knows an organization drive is underway.
We all know that Wal-Mart has no respect for the law, but you have to remember that the right to organize is not just the law, but a human right. Here's the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23, Section 4, taken from the web site of the US State Department:
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
If Wal-Mart were a country, Amnesty International would have been on their case a long time ago. But since Wal-Mart is just a business, albeit a very large one, that job falls to you and me. Are you up for it?
JR