[A-List] "The Late '90s Never Happened"

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Further developments re the "productivity miracle" that was the US,
apparently.


Wal-Mart workers battle for a union

Employees fight American capitalist symbol for a chance at improved rights.
Timothy Pratt in Las Vegas reports
The Sunday Herald, 24 November 2002

When Angie Griego, 59, speaks of her four years working for Wal-Mart, one of
the world's most successful capitalist symbols, she has the unexpected habit
of comparing the experience to living under communist rule.

'When I got really involved in trying to unionise, they sent six or seven
managers from Bentonville (Arkansas, the retail chain's corporate head
quarters) who said to me that I couldn't call other employees at home,' she
said of an incident two years ago.

'They were dictating what I was doing on my own time -- as if I was living
in communist China!'

Griego quit and has been working at supermarkets with unions ever since. But
she hasn't forgotten her former colleagues and said she is determined to
help overcome the huge company's resistance to organised labour.

In her spare time she has become part of a nationwide push that began in Las
Vegas just over two years ago, pitting the country's largest representative
of retail workers against the world's largest retailer. The union side got a
boost on Thursday with its first co-ordinated series of protests, held in 40
states.

The struggle is over whether the United Food and Commercial Workers Union,
with its one million US membership, can break into Wal-Mart, with its 5500
stores and 1.3 million employees worldwide.

In its 40 years of moving from small towns to urban centres, not one of its
3300 US (or 1200 international) stores has had a union. But labour is
picking up steam after a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled in
September that management at three stores breached laws relating to union
activities -- including passing over Griego for promotion because of her
union organising efforts.

The board has filed over 40 complaints nationwide, each of which contains
numerous allegations. Four originated in the Las Vegas area, including the
one that produced the September ruling. Though Wal-Mart has been found
guilty of breaking the law 10 times, most of the allegations are still
pending or being appealed against.

The ratching up of the campaign -- represented by the complaints, the
protests, a website and a radio show -- comes at a time when organised
labour in the USA is at an all-time low, with only about 9% of all workers
in unions.

Bill Meyer -- a labour veteran of 27 years, who was tapped to organise Las
Vegas in October 2000 -- said his union chose Las Vegas to take on Wal-Mart
because of the city's strong casino workers' union, which has more than
50,000 members. 'We felt that ... a very union- oriented town would make the
community very receptive to our message,' he said.

Of course, the Las Vegas metropolitan area has also attracted Wal-Mart's
attention, being the nation's fastest- growing. At 1.56 million in the 2000
census, its population almost doubled during the 1990s.

'There's definitely been a lot of interest in the Las Vegas market in recent
years,' said Bill Wertz, a Wal-Mart spokesman.

The problem, Meyer said, is that all the new stores popping up are paying
workers lower wages than unionised stores and charging them higher prices
for health insurance. End results include Wal-Mart workers depending more on
social services, he said.

'A lot of people I knew working at Wal-Mart still qualified for food stamps
and Medicaid or Medicare,' Griego said.

Of Wal-Mart workers in the Las Vegas stores who the union has spoken to, 70%
said they cannot afford the company's health insurance plans, according to
Meyer.

But Wertz said 60% to 65% of workers use the plans , a figure which he said
was comparable with industry standards. Still, competing companies where
unions represent workers are feeling the strain in their bottom lines, Meyer
said.

'In Chicago, Safeway is concerned about Wal-Mart moving in, and their
operating costs.

'Eventually, unionised employers are going to say they can no longer pay
comprehensive health care, pensions, and wages for a middle-class lifestyle
because Wal-Mart is dragging them down.'

When asked about Wal-Mart's opposition to organised labour, Wertz stressed
the company's folksy beginnings.

'We have a better alternative,' he said. 'If you look at how we started, we
have had direct communication where people on the sales floors have had
input into business decisions.'

This idea is reflected in Wal-Mart's use of the term associate instead of
employee.

At the same time, Wertz said his company uses several tools to oppose union
organising, including a manual for managers that explains 'what the union's
approach is and what our approach is ... (and) labour laws', and a roving
team of 10 to 20 who play a similar role.

'When we are experiencing intense union activity, we send specialists in
labour relations and they meet with managers and associates, if necessary,
to explain the advantages of our system,' he said.

With Thursday's protests, the battle between organised labour and America's
biggest employer moved to include those who oil the economy's gears --
shoppers. Union supporters rallied at Wal-Mart stores nationwide, offering
shoppers their message.

'The idea,' said Meyer, 'is to make people more aware of the consequences of
Wal-Mart to the community. When you show people the costs Wal-Mart puts on
governments, communities and people's pay cheques, it's clear that saving 25
cents on a tube of toothpaste is not what it's about.'

Wertz said his stores will prevail. 'I hope our shoppers put this in
perspective,' he said.

'The union is a business ... which sees Wal-Mart associates as a huge
revenue- generating opportunity.'

But it could never generate the $220 billion Wal-Mart makes every year.