THE WAR AGAINST THE TRADE UNIONS
December 5, 2008
Manuel E. Yepe
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2257.html
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Now that the United States has managed to get a “different” president, some old conflicts begin to show different nuances.
Wal-Mart, the U.S. giant that operates retail chain-stores, mobilized all its store managers and department supervisors in the country to warn that if Democrats won the presidential election in November 2008, federal law would inevitably change to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.
This huge consortium is the largest private employer in the United States and boasts of not allowing its employees in any of its stores and other facilities to join the union. A large number of immigrants who work at Wal-Mart, lack the most basic labor and civil rights, according to many denunciations habitually ignored by the “big” press.

Thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads were summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stressed the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.
According to an article entitled “Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win”,
published in the Wall Street Journal on August 1, 2008, a dozen employees from seven states around the country interviewed by Ann Zimmerman and Kris Maher, maintained that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and would be forced to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization would mean fewer jobs as salary costs rise.
The actions by Wal-Mart reflect a growing concern among big business that a reinvigorated labor movement could reverse years of declining union membership in the country. Wal-Mart executives argue that this would lead to higher payroll, salaries, and health and safety costs for companies already being hurt by the rising cost of raw materials and the country’s complex economic situation.
The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who ran the meetings didn't specifically tell attendees how to vote in the November election, but made it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states, as quoted by the media.
“I’m not telling you how to vote but bear in mind that, if the Democrats win, they will pass bills promoting the creation of labor unions and you will not be invited to have a say one way or another,” said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri, quoted by interviewees when referring to the Employee Free Choice Act that entrepreneurs have long rejected for fear that union membership would increase by the millions.
Many other companies and entrepreneurial organizations, particularly the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have backed Wal-Mart’s anti-union crusade and invest millions in publicity campaigns and other actions “to educate workers concerning the inconvenience of the bill and the dangers of unionism in general.”
This bill was first introduced in the U.S. Congress in 2003, and, in 2007, it was passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, but was blocked by the Senate and faced a presidential veto threat by George W. Bush.
It is known that Sen. Barack Obama, now President-elect and soon to occupy the Oval Office on January 20, was one of the co-sponsors of that legislation, and, during his campaign, he promised that, if he was elected president, he would sign it into law. His opponent, McCain, was against it at all times.
However, it is also known that, although for 12 years 98% of Wal-Mart’s donations to the campaigns of either presidential candidate was sent to the Republican Party, this proportion changed once Democrats seemed poised to gain control in Washington in the last election, when 48% of Wal-Mart’s general $2.2-million donation went to the Democratic Party and 52% to the Republican Party, even as the consortium waged a strong campaign against Obama through its management personnel in all its vast chain of stores.
December, 2008