CASE 7.

1: SERVICE SECTOR STRUGGLES:

ORGANIZING WAL-MART IN QUEBEC

INTRODUCTION
On February 9, 2005, Wal-Mart stunned its employees in Jonquiere, Quebec by
announcing that they would be terminate the contracts of all of the approximately 200
employees and close the store on May 6, 2005 for business reasons. This business
reason may have been that the loss of money from its profit that exceeded $ 10 billion
US in 2004. The time of this announcement conveniently coincided just hours after the
Minister of Labour granted the unions request for a first contract arbitrator; since they
were having no success for months at negotiating the first collective agreement.
Wal-Mart has always had an anti-union motive. They do various things, whether
ethical or not, to avoid or resist unionization. These actions can scale from giving
managers guidebook to antiunion to closing down unionized locations due to business
reason. This works not only as an immediate fix to current unionization, but it also
deters employees in other locations from voting to become unionized.

DAVID CHALLENGING GOLIATH

The possibility for employees to successfully challenge Wal-Marts determination
to stay union-free is present but the employees and the union must change their approach.
One suggestion is that unions shift their focus from just one individual store to the entire
company at one time. One store with hundreds of employees is nothing to a giant firm
like Wal-Mart, millions or billions of employees demanding to unionize to would be very
difficult for them to fight and cause a true damage to their billions of dollars in profit. If
the union received the backing of every single employee under the company gives unions
the power and credibility that they need to fight for them and to better protect them from
any backlash employers will throw. For example, Wal-Mart would not be able to close
every store that has union supporters due to business reason; this would Wal-Mart
hundreds of millions of dollars.
Also employees dont need to join the union to have the backing there is the
alternative of union substitution organizations whose goals are similar to those of unions.
For example the Organization for United Respect at Wal-Mart (OUR Wal-Mart), formed
in 2010, whose mission is to ensure that every Associate, regardless of his or her title,
age, race, or sex, is respected at Wal-Mart. We join together to offer strength and support
in addressing the challenges that arise in our stores and our company everyday.
Unfortunately Wal-Mart is not in favour of OUR Wal-Mart either.

A strategy Wal-Mart adopted is union removal strategy, this is when it

aggressively tries to eliminate any unions that already exist within their operation and
avoid any new certifications (Peirce, 2006). The company adopted practices to decrease
employees motivation to unionize through management holding mandatory anti-union
meetings and issuing dire warnings about the future of the store (Bloomberg Business
2006).
Even though theres a high road approach to stay union-free of providing pay
and benefits that are slightly superior to the unionized norm in the industry Wal-Mart
does not believe in it. Instead Wal-Mart tends to tap into their deep pockets to use
aggressive resistance tactics and engaging expensive legal battles, like in 1996 when it
hired a team of legal experts who file countless arguments, objections, and actions
challenging everything from the union's contact with employees to the constitutionality of
collective bargaining legislation (Peirce, 2006) against the United Steelworkers of
America who filed a union certification application for the Windsor, Ontario, store. The
long-drawn legal battle piled up labour relations board and court proceedings driving the
unions into giving up their bargaining rights if Wal-Mart would drop the lawsuits.
Another is scare tactics, such as closing stores like in the unionized location in Jonquiere,
Quebec as an example for others locations to see. Wal-Mart also uses their alliance as
weapon of control in a passive aggressive manner to get rid of unions, in 2000 when
butchers in its Jacksonville, Texas, store voted to become unionized, Wal-Mart
announced it would cut all meat-packaging operations at all 180 stores.(Peirce, 2006)
This decision was part of a long-term plan.

CONCLUSION
Wal-Mart is determined to stay union-free and this could be possible without any
aggressive tactics, such as taking the high road of superior pay, actual benefits and give
full-time hours. For their excuse of not having the fund can be solved through shifting
the finance they use to created management anti union training videos and printing
Manager's Toolbox To Remaining Union Free to their employees demands.
Also the amount of legal fees they spend may seem to solve their problem but
they dont realize that a long term investment in their workers may prove to be more
beneficial for them because when employees feel valued and heard, they dont look to
unions to protect them from their employers. Unions dont get called into to workplaces
with strong management-employee relations; they go where the work relationship is
strained and unbalanced. In a final note, a union cannot take a vote of no confidence in
employment policy; its given to it by those who dont have lost confidence in the
fairness of their employers policy.