Yesterday, I brought you this link to the anti-union brainwashing section of a Wal-Mart employee orientation video that (presumably accidentally) ended up online. Then, I started fisking it. Today, I'll finish with the fisking.
First thing though, I have to repeat a bit of dialog here to get you the context of the conversation:
Donna (manager): You see management recognizes our associates. We know that our associates are good. Associates even came with suggestions about our work schedule.
Russell: And they used some of them right away.
Donna: Russell, do you know of any unions that work like that?
Russell: Of course not. All unions work at is taking a cut out of my pay.
Unions raise wages and improve benefits. If "Russell"'s union didn't do that for him, he should have left them. However, since "Russell" is a fictional character in a management propaganda video he has no reason to explain the big picture.
Dane (new employee #2): Yeah, take your money and help them spend it on political campaigns and to help people I don’t even vote for.
Interesting assumption, isn't it? "Dane" is obviously a fictional Republican, unless he's talking about the fact that unions might spend money out of the district, except those dreaded politicians can actually make laws to improve the lives of Wal-Mart workers too. Either way, it's fun watching Wal-Mart reinforce a narrative of American individualism that is well over one hundred years old now.
Russell: Me too, but they’re never going to do that to me again.
Julie (new employee #2): You were in a union?
Russell: Yup, but no more. You see I’m one of the hundreds of thousands of former union workers . . . or members (chuckles) I’m one of the hundreds of thousands of reasons that unions are getting so much smaller.
This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to hit something. Wal-Mart encourages its suppliers to set up shop in China and they blame unions for the collapse of union labor? They'd be better off blaming union members who shop at their stores. What's so funny is that the film just made a big deal about how unions are so undemocratic with how they spend their money yet "Russell" still managed to vote with his feet...right into a low-paying unstable job.
Julie: Dane was in a union too.
Dane: Yeah, I was in a union. Where I worked union rules made so we couldn’t even rush a shipment. Yeah, we kept on losing customers and money until the truck line shut down. A lot of jobs, more union jobs, are all gone.
Julie: You [unintelligible] for a truck line you voted for a union.
Dane: Voted for a union [chuckles]. No, there never was a vote. The union got enough card signs and demanded that the company recognize the union without an election.
My understanding of labor law tells me this is pure poppycock. This could happen in Canada, not the United States. Unions would die for card check, certification without elections, because then employers like Wal-Mart couldn't intimidate potential voters. Employers are not legally compelled to accept signed cards as proof of union support and certainly this could never happen at a company as anti-union as Wal-Mart.
Julie: Without an election and they didn’t have cards to sign that said you wanted a union election?
Dane: Yeah, and I signed a card just to get’em off my back. I thought there’d have to be a vote and I’d vote no, but I sure got fooled.
[cuts off]
Boo hoo hoo! Poor Dane! The big bad union was harassing him. His employer has the right to fire him almost at will and he's worried about a bunch of union supporters calling his house or something. It's absolutely stunning how business feel the need to play up the potential threat of a union so that they can rail against something that isn't really a threat. Kind of reminds me of Iran, these days.
I imagine that my reaction to a film like this would be something like, "If this company is so afraid of unions, I better look into them." However, I'm jaded. That's why I'm repeating yesterday's poll question. Don't vote again if you voted then.
JR
