Posted on 06/18/2003 4:37:09 PM PDT by Reaganwuzthebest
Company Ordered to Turn Over Information to Union
WASHINGTON, June 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- When meat cutters at a Jacksonville, Tex., Wal-Mart voted for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 540 representation, the company refused to recognize the union -- and suddenly changed the job functions of the meat cutters with a change to case-ready meat. Wal-Mart believed it had successfully circumvented the UFCW's first victory at one of its stores -- until a National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge ordered the company to recognize and bargain with Local 540 over the effects of the change to prepackaged meat. This order comes more than three years after the original union election.
"Changing the way all of its stores sell meat shows the extent to which Wal-Mart will go to keep the union out of its stores," says UFCW Executive Vice President Mike Leonard. "Anytime management concocts a scheme to ratchet down people's livelihoods, it says a lot about the real nature of the company."
Wal-Mart quickly changed how the Jacksonville store's meat department operated after the workers voted for Local 540, making the meat cutters into "sales associates." The sudden switch to case-ready meat became evidence of the scope of Wal-Mart's anti-union strategy. Wal-Mart even boasted to its managers in a Powerpoint presentation, "It's the ultimate union avoidance strategy!" The meat cutters' specialized skills were devalued once their work assignments were changed.
"The absence of future wage increases, coupled with the effects of inflation, constitute a very demonstrable and adverse effect," the judge concluded. "The elimination of work requiring their special skills greatly affected both job satisfaction and future earning potential."
The judge has ordered Wal-Mart to recognize UFCW Local 540 as the bargaining representative for the meat cutters, and restore the department to its prior structure. The judge also ordered Wal-Mart to bargain with Local 540 concerning the effects of the decision to eliminate meat cutting from the Jacksonville store. Wal-Mart must provide the information regarding decision to switch to prepackaged meats that it withheld from the workers' union at the time of the change.
On Tuesday, Local 540 President Johnny Rodriguez formally requested the start of bargaining with Wal-Mart. Such negotiations would mark the first time that Wal-Mart and the union would sit at the bargaining table.
"This is a historic decision-the first bargaining order issued against Wal-Mart in the United States," explains Leonard. "It is a victory for all Wal-Mart workers who are fighting for a voice at work."
The meat cutters in Jacksonville became the first group of workers to vote for union representation at Wal-Mart in February, 2000. Just one month later -- during a separate NLRB hearing on a union election at a meat department in Palestine, Tex. -- Wal-Mart announced it had decided to replace freshly cut meat with case-ready meat-eliminating the need for meat cutters in every one of its stores. Wal-Mart has repeatedly stated that it will not bargain with any union, and has taken steps to prevent workers from organizing in stores across North America.
As soon as this demand was made three years ago, Wal-Mart should have terminated every last one of them, being Texas is a right-to-work state.
But they did not, and look what happened.
I'd bet they are kicking themselves for not giving them the boot now.
Perhaps our government can also order Wal-Mart to open a computer programming department to give all the out-of-work techies jobs. This is the ultimate cure for unemployment!! Lets have judges go around ordering companies to create new departments to employ people.
In this case at least, it's not so much the existence of unions that bother me as it is the state forcing a business to recognize and deal with them.
Workers should have the right of association, and business owners should have the right to control their property as they like. This includes firing workers trying to unionize or refusing to bargain with them.
Here's why unions are unnecessary; if you don't like what they are paying you at your job, quit. If you can't afford to quit, then shut up.
You never have to work any harder than you want to, and no one has to pay you anything more than they want. That's what makes America great.
If you want high wages, work real hard and make a reputation for yourself and people will compete for your services.
They punish performance, artificially inflate the cost of things to balance their un-justified and overly inflated salaries and they back it with the force of law. That's wrong and there's no defending it.
Imagine for a moment.. Do you think everyone at McDonalds should be union? Then we can all happily pay $20.00 for a big mac while the lazy unionites are busy building new houses and buying bass boats.
Oh yes, big labor isn't going away with manufacturing.. It's going to invade our new "service" economy from top to bottom.
You thought you got bad service before? Just wait till the unionites get through with it.
It's their right..
Don't like it? Shop at Meijer, they're union.
As for me, I will spend my dollars at WalMart.
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