Abstract

ROLLBACK WAGES

Staying union free is a full-time commitment. This admonition comes from a handbook Wal-Mart distributes to managers, and gives an idea of the passion and vision behind Wal-Mart's unionbusting project. The $259 billion retail behemoth that has become a defining feature of the United States landscape has also profoundly altered labor politics, deploying ever more creative and ruthless tactics to suppress the right to organize, while driving down wages and benefits in the retail industry and beyond. To take one example, after striking for months, grocery workers in Southern California were forced to accept a vastly reduced health plan early in 2004, as supermarkets, anticipating competition from new Wal-Mart Supercenters throughout the state, refused to compromise with the union--probably the first time in history that a potential competitor who had not even entered the market yet was such a key player in a labor dispute. Wal-Mart is the nation's largest private employer, with over 1.2 million employees. The average wage is around $8 an hour--and the health plan so expensive and so stingy in its coverage that many workers go without, or depend on the government to pay their medical bills. During the hiring process, many workers say they have had to sign forms agreeing that they would not support any effort to unionize the store, a clear violation of federal law. In Brazil Wal-Mart has had to reach agreement with unions on some workers' rights issues, while in Japan all of the company's workers are unionized, and Wal-Mart abides by an agreement reached with the stores' previous owner. In her 2001 book "Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take On the Global Factory," Miriam Ching Yoon Louie describes how garment workers have developed worker centers both to agitate for rights on the job and to develop political consciousness and become part of a larger social movement.