Invading Wal-Mart Priority for UFCW

Even the most powerful of unions have found infiltrating Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is about as simple a task as chopping firewood with an emery board. It hasn’t happened, and if the Bentonville retail giant has its way, the union’s efforts will continue to prove futile.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the largest private sector union in North America, shows its distaste for the company on the home page of its Web site, www.ufcw.org. It has headlines that read ‘Working At Wal-Mart Today: The Reality;’ and ‘Wal-Mart: It’s Not Sam’s Store Anymore.’

The UFCW would obviously love to see the world’s largest retailer become unionized. Wal-Mart has almost 1.25 million employees, including more than 962,000 associates in the United States. The UFCW is made up of 1.4 million members.

Based in Washington, D.C., the UFCW believes there are signs Wal-Mart employees are beginning to see the positive impact it feels the union has to offer. Spokesperson Jill Cashen told the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal about a Web site, www.walmartworkerslv.com, which serves Wal-Mart workers in the Las Vegas area. That site has a message board for employees to vent their complaints while also steering colleagues toward union ideas, including letters from Avis Hammond, an employee who authored the book, What’s Wrong with Wal-Mart.

“We’ve been working to organize Wal-Mart for years,” Cashen said. “They’re the biggest retailer in the country, they have more employees than any other private employer, yet they don’t provide the kind of benefits and wages and job benefits their people deserve. We know this because [the employees] contact us all the time.”

Cashen said the main issue the UFCW has with Wal-Mart is its health care package.

“Wal-Mart claims it provides health care benefits to its employees,” Cashen said. “What they do is sell the benefits, but most [employees] can’t afford it. The devil is in the details. A vast number of employees don’t qualify and/or can’t afford it. That leaves them with nothing. And the policy itself is a very, very substandard health insurance plan.”

Jessica Moser, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart, contends such statements are unsubstantiated.

“The fact is we take care of our associates,” Moser said. “UFCW leaders can continue with their sensational remarks and constant attacks against our company, but our focus is going to be on listening and taking care of our associates. The UFCW leaders are constantly attacking our company and bombarding our associates with literature and unsolicited phone calls and visits. But, with more than 100 million customers visiting our stores and clubs each week and 962,000 Americans choosing to work for Wal-Mart, we believe they see that Wal-Mart is a good company.

“We offer our associates competitive wages and a comprehensive benefits package. For example, a part-time cashier at Wal-Mart can receive health benefits for $8.50 a pay-period or every two weeks, a 401K plan and a profit sharing plan, which the company contributes to regardless of whether the associate personally contributes. “

Moser said 58 percent of the people hired by Wal-Mart in 2000 — more than four million applied for Wal-Mart jobs last year — said one of the main reasons they joined the company was for the health benefits. She also said UFCW’s motives are obvious, adding that only 5.2 percent of the entire retail sector’s employees are in the union.

“One might be able to see why [UFCW] organizers are trying to boost membership,” Moser said.

Nevertheless, Cashen strongly feels the union will eventually get inside Wal-Mart.

“Yes,” Cashen said. “But organizing a union is a worker-driven process. When [Wal-Mart employees] are ready to do it, we’ll be there with all the resources and skills to do it.”