There are two ways to look at the front page of the Sunday Hibbing Daily Tribune, which features a Jeff Warner story and photo (“Union workers protest Wal-Mart; Al Franken visits to show support“).
A) This was a great cover story and photo for Al Franken. The picture features Franken speaking to a group of picketers outside the Hibbing Wal-Mart at a protest over the retail giant’s decision to hire non-union labor to do a major renovation project at the store. Franken looks like a leader and his comments in the story cement his position as the labor candidate in a strongly labor community like Hibbing. Wal-Mart’s corporate office comes across as rather crass, pretending as though they are hiring non-union labor because they’re “more qualified” when it’s plain to see that this was a financial decision for them. This was a net positive for Franken and the point is valid: the community would be better off if big companies like Wal-Mart supported union employers who paid union wages and benefits.
But then there’s the more difficult other side of the story:
B) I didn’t honk when I saw the picket line earlier that day, even though I usually honk at every picket line I see. The reason was because I thought it would be hypocritical of me to honk when I was actually driving into the Wal-Mart parking lot.
We don’t do all our shopping at Wal-Mart, but we do some. And even if I had honked and driven somewhere else to pay more for the particular product we were buying, I would be doing so for purely political reasons. The vast legions of apolitical, cost-conscious shoppers would still enter the parking lot and buy from Wal-Mart. And that’s the flip side to this story. Protests like these bring attention to the important issues of consumer choices and labor standards, but they fail to change anything. Wal-Mart flicks stories like this off its massive shoulder and presses on with its global plan.
The challenge for labor unions in the 21st century is to connect with those people driving into the Wal-Mart parking lot, especially the Wal-Mart employees barred from organizing. I know people who work there and they seem to resent displays like this because they are divisive and, anyway, they know that people will continue to shop there, sometimes late at night when they think no one will see them.
And yes, I know I risk a dressing down from the purists who never, ever set foot in the Wal-Mart, but most of you know that I’m speaking of a hard truth. In a small town where a Wal-Mart has carved out a major share of the retail economy, you don’t have many choices on some products. And as poor as Wal-Mart’s labor record is, they hire more local people than Amazon.com which is where many of the so-called labor purists (and, again, me) do our shopping for books, DVDs and “modern” goods that aren’t available at the mom and pop stores. If you’re boycotting Wal-Mart for political reasons, you may as well boycott Target, Amazon and everywhere that uses the same model of keeping costs low. And you better be able to afford a 20 percent hike in your family’s expenses, on top of rising food and gas prices.
Al Franken and the local unions are right about this issue. Wal-Mart would have been much more helpful to the community by sticking with the proven union labor that hires local people. But Franken, if and when elected, and the unions also have a hard path ahead of them in accomplishing the kind of fair economic system they want while allowing private industry to remain competitive in the 21st century economy. This is not a simple problem and will require a modern labor movement similar in scope to that of 100 years ago, tailored to the iPod generation.
Aaron,
That’s an interesting perspective. People from this region are always going to go to the store where they can get the best product for the lowest price. Whether people like it or not, that’s Walmart and always will be for the foreseeable future. I’m not quite sure why the unions have made Walmart their “battlecry” when they’re not really any different than Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menard’s, etc. I have a friend from college that works at Walmart’s headquarters in Northwest Arkansas. I guess Walmart brings in a speaker from outside the company every Saturday morning and all employees at the corporate headquarters are required to attend at least twice a month. They’ve brought in everybody from Al Sharpton for Martin Luther King Day to one of the Microsoft founders. He claims that Walmart’s average wage for non-exempt employees is something like $11 per hour nationwide, which really isn’t all that bad for a non-skilled position.
I know many from this region don’t want to hear it, but for the area to be successful long term the labor unions are going to have to go by the wayside. There was a legitimate purpose for labor unions back when workers were getting paid next to nothing and working in horrible conditions, but those days are over. OSHA and the trial lawyers already make sure the working conditions are good. The part about unions that has always bugged me is how they reward bad employees who have been there a long time and punish the newer workers. If you look at all of the areas around the country where organized labor has had a large presence over the past half century (NE Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania), those are the areas that are struggling the most now. While it’s good to see that NE Minnesota is having a bit of a revitaliztion, we all know that it will only last as long as the price of steel is high. The area that have done the best in recent are those in the San Francisco Bay, Phoenix, Texas, and Florida where there is a very small organized labor presence.
I’m sorry Aaron, but this is the same argument scabs have been making since labor unions started using strikes and boycotts. “If I don’t take the job someone else will.” “My family needs the money.” “Nothing is going to change.” “This isn’t the right way to go about it.” “Everyone else is just as bad.” …
“There was a legitimate purpose for labor unions back when workers were getting paid next to nothing and working in horrible conditions, but those days are over.”
Not really. Just take a look at the conditions in non-union meat packing plants that used to be union. Its true that an economic system where women can earn (almost) as much as men has made families a lot less desperate as individual incomes declined. But that doesn’t change the fact that Walmart does not pay a living family wage to most of its local workers.
The area that have done the best in recent are those in the San Francisco Bay, Phoenix, Texas, and Florida where there is a very small organized labor presence.
In fact California, for instance, has a much higher than average percentage of its workforce unionized. But its true, right-to-work states like Arizona, Texas and Florida have much lower rates of unionizing. Its not true that those areas are doing better economically than places like California (including San Francisco), Portland and Seattle where there unions are relatively strong.
The real problem with Walmart, beyond its anti-labor record, is that it drains money out of the community. The best paid, skilled jobs for accountants, buyers, marketing etc. are all at corporate headquarters. So money spent at Walmart in Hibbing leaves the community immediately instead of circulating to support other people.
You buy shoes at Benders and they pay a local accountant, they buy a boat from a local store, they pay a local sign painter. They buy advertising in the Hibbing Tribune that pays someone to write a column.
Yeh, Walmart buys local ads too, but not much of their advertising budget goes there. Instead your purchase pays for TV, radio and generic inserts printed somewhere else. In the end, as money drains away, the town is poorer with fewer choices.
The other thing is that while products may be cheaper at Walmart, they are often made cheap because Walmart uses its market shore to get brand names put on lower quality goods that meet its price point. That shirt may say Polo, but its not necessarily the same shirt sold at Bloomingdales.
Which Side Are You On?
by Florence Reese
Come all of you good workers
Good news to you I’ll tell
Of how that good old union
Has come in here to dwell
(Chorus)
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
My daddy was a miner
And I’m a miner’s son
And I’ll stick with the union
Till every battle’s won
They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You’ll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Blair
Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?
Don’t scab for the bosses
Don’t listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven’t got a chance
Unless we organize
I knew full well I’d invite this kind of criticism for writing what I did, but for perspective know that:
A) I am a proud union member and local officer who supports the movement
B) I agree with the mission of the picket line at Wal-Mart
C) I have “Joe Hill” on my iPod (“Says Joe, I never died”)
I would throw a molotov cocktail into the customer service section of the Wal-Mart if I thought it would help anything, but it wouldn’t. Fact is, most 20-somethings drove past that picket and said “What the hell?” I know this because many of them came up to me and said, “What the hell?” We’ve got plummeting union membership and aren’t having any luck in turning it around. I’m not saying give up the fight, I’m saying fight smarter. Organize in a way that people understand, that rewards new members and puts as much weight on helping young workers provide for their families and keep their jobs as seniority and work duty disputes. I’m as hot for labor songs as anyone, but our message isn’t getting through.
I buy my New Balance shoes (made nonunion) at Bender’s (which is nonunion, too, by the way) and my groceries at Super One (union). But when the kids need diapers and I’m coming off work and my wife has a really good coupon I stop off at the damn evil Wal-Mart and my students pay their way through tech school on those damn lousy wages. I’d rather they make more, but they won’t until we find a way to hurt Wal-Mart for real. Like I said, they eat protests like this for breakfast. We agree on the mission, but I pose the question, “Is it working?”
Anonymous, you make some good points and probably know a lot more about meatpacking plants than I do. As for California having a large union presence, that may be true, but their biggest industry (technology) is not. Here in NE Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, the biggest industry revolves around mining which is unionized. As for Walmart taking money out of communities, it may be true but that is what the free market system is all about. Should companies like Essar Steel, US Steel, or Cleveland Cliffs be able to run mining operations on the Range? After all, while they employ workers locally, most of the money goes to their headquarters out East (or to India in the case of Essar).
Like I said earlier, the major problems I have with unions is the seniority system and how it takes an act of God to fire somebody. Workers should be judged on their skill set and work ethic, not simply on how long they’ve been employed. I’d have a lot more sympathy for the labor movement if those rules would be eliminated and they’d give up on the intimidation tactics which have been used in the past. If you want to organize and agree not to work for an employer unless they’ll give you more money, benefits, etc, that’s fine. If you want to try to persuade those who might be willing to work for less (as you referred to as “scabs”) that they shouldn’t work for that employer, that’s fine. When those workers are threatened with physical harm, that’s where I draw the line.
“for California having a large union presence, that may be true, but their biggest industry (technology) is not”
From wikipedia’s entry on California:
“The predominant industry, more than twice as large as the next, is agriculture, (including fruit, vegetables, dairy, and wine). This is followed by aerospace; entertainment, primarily television by dollar volume, although many movies are still made in California; music production and recording studios; light manufacturing, including computer hardware and software; and the mining of borax. Oil drilling has played a significant role in the development of the state.”
“As for Walmart taking money out of communities, it may be true but that is what the free market system is all about.”
No, it isn’t and Walmart is not operating in a free market. They are operating to control the market.
“while they employ workers locally, most of the money goes to their headquarters out East (or to India in the case of Essar).”
You seemed to have missed the point. The money these companies pay their employees all comes from products they produce here and sell outside the region. They are providing an enormous benefit by bringing the wealth into the region that Walmart is draining away.
“Workers should be judged on their skill set and work ethic, not simply on how long they’ve been employed”
Judged by who? God makes judgments, not bosses. Bosses play favorites. If they have the power, you don’t get to decide whether they favor “skill set and work ethic” or favor family, friendship or good looks. The purpose of seniority is to take away the boss’s power and create an objective criteria for advancement. Its certainly doesn’t produce perfect results, but its a whole lot better than letting the boss decide for himself.
But when the kids need diapers and I’m coming off work and my wife has a really good coupon I stop off at the damn evil Wal-Mart … We agree on the mission, but I pose the question, “Is it working?”
The reality, alluded to by Todd, is that the labor movement was built by people ready and willing to use violence to protect their jobs. People went to jail and some sacrificed their lives. How do you really expect to build the labor movement if cheap pampers are too big a sacrifice?
I’d rather they make more, but they won’t until we find a way to hurt Wal-Mart for real. Like I said, they eat protests like this for breakfast.
No they don’t. In fact they are very concerned about the public pressure they are getting around their lack of health care, low wages and the damage they do to communities.
But every time someone goes in a store while it is being picketed they are encouraging Walmart to resist. Walmart knows how much they are losing while the pickets are going on because they can track their receipts. They don’t worry about how many people come in, but they need to worry about how many people don’t. Because those people may find what they need somewhere else and buy there instead next time.
One of Walmart’s goals is to not have people go to other stores. They want to have everything you need. Because if you have to go to another store anyway, you might buy a lot of other stuff there that you could have bought at Walmart. So far from shrugging off a temporary loss of customers, they see it as a direct assault on the core of their business plan.
California’s biggest industry may be acgriculture, but technology is what’s made it go (especially in the SF Bay Area) in the past two decades.
Some bosses may play favorites, but they won’t be bosses for very long if they do. If they don’t hire/promote the most qualified worker, their department’s productivity will suffer because of it. The seniority system just gives workers who have been around a long time a free pass to not take their job seriously and punishes younger workers who work hard and are more skilled. If older workers work hard and keep improving their skills, they will have nothing to worry about.
You can say what you want about Walmart wanting to “control the market”, but they just do the retail business a lot better and more efficiently than anybody else. I will buy from whoever can get me the best product at the lowest price, just like the vast majority of people.
You know Aaron, its insulting that you dismiss those who sacrifice and go out of their way to avoid Wal Mart as being purists.
Target, Lowes, and etc are not the same.
Inform yourself and watch the following documentary on their practices, then come back and be so dismissive:
http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=105
Don’t end up like Todd. Those union members got what they deserved laying down with the devil. Now I hope they’ll help stop the spread of this practice and company.
Eric
Todd, the average wage may be correct but ask your friend how many hours are they allowed to work?
The average Wal Mart worker brings home about 13,500/yr. The poverty line is at 17,400.
So how many of these employees are forced on WIC and subsidized housing and medical care?
We’re paying for your low prices.
Eric
Eric,
That may be true about the take home pay per year and the poverty line, but did you consider that a large percentage, if not a majority of the workers at Walmart are either students working part time or people who people who just want to make some extra income in addition to their job elsewhere? Also, does it take into consideration that most retail outlets (and I assume Walmart) have high turnover rates and therefore many employees wouldn’t work a full year? I worked as an Assistant Manager at Walgreens (Thank God I’ll never have to work there again) and we’d have several employees that would work a couple of days before quitting. Would their yearly salary of a couple hundred dollars fall in with that study?
Also, if it’s true that Walmart employees are only allowed to work half time or so (which I doubt), it should leave them plenty of time to work another part time job elsewhere.
Tod,
Try watching the documentary. Or searching for information.
Just last week a state judge in Minnesota has ruled that Wal-Mart Stores violated state laws on rest breaks and other wage matters more than two million times and as a result could face more than $2 billion in fines. The judge has threatened to impose a $1,000 penalty for each violation.
The judge also ruled on Monday that Wal-Mart owed $6.5 million to 56,000 current and former employees because of contractual violations, including a failure to give workers promised rest breaks at least 1.5 million times. The judge also found that Wal-Mart managers in Minnesota had systematically broken the law by having employees take in-house training while off the clock.
The Minnesota case is one of more than 70 lawsuits (70!!!) filed across the country in which employees have accused Wal-Mart of making them work off the clock or miss required breaks.
In Pennsylvania in 2006, a jury awarded $78 million in a lawsuit against Wal-Mart over rest breaks and off-the-clock work. Last year, a judge increased that award to $188 million to include damages, interest and lawyers’ fees.
In a 2005 verdict in California, Wal-Mart was ordered to pay $172 million for making employees miss meal breaks.
Judge King in Minnesota found that Wal-Mart had violated state law by failing to keep records for 325,188 shifts, or 13 percent. He also found that on 69,710 occasions Wal-Mart stores in the state had failed to make appropriate time records for people who were off the clock and having in-store computer-based training.
Judge King repeatedly said that Wal-Mart’s audits had found that its workers were missing meal and rest breaks tens of thousands of times.
Wal-Mart said that it could not rely on those audits, but the judge faulted company managers for taking no action in response to the audits. “They put their heads in the sand,” he wrote.
In what some workers said were the most serious violations, Judge King found that Wal-Mart owed $3.6 million for failing to provide the 56,000 members in the class-action suit with rest breaks to which they were contractually entitled.
He also said the company owed $1.6 million for 4.4 million contractual violations of shorting workers — giving workers less than the amount of time they were entitled to — on their 15-minute rest breaks
Under the ruling, Wal-Mart faces the greatest liability for violating Minnesota law by deducting several minutes from workers’ pay when they took rest breaks for 16, 17 or 18 minutes, when Wal-Mart said they were entitled to 15-minute breaks. Under Minnesota law, employers are barred from deducting minutes from a worker’s pay so long as the break lasts less than 20 minutes.
Judge King found that Wal-Mart had committed that statutory violation 1.5 million times; the company is subject to a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for each of those violations.
Judge King also concluded that Wal-Mart had broken state law by failing to give 73,864 meal breaks. Each of those violations could also bring a $1,000 fine.
Of course you’ll tell me that all of this is random and not some pattern. Or, its mid-level managers who made these decisions not upper management. Or, it just a Minnesota issue.
* Wal-Mart has known for years of a massive companywide problem of fair labor standards violations but did not take sufficient steps to address the problem. An internal Wal-Mart audit of one week of time records in 2000 from 25,000 employees had alerted Wal-Mart officials to potential violations. The audit found 60,767 missed breaks and 15,705 lost meal times. It also alerted Wal-Mart executives to 1,371 instances of minors working too late, during school hours, or for too many hours in a day. [Steven Greenhouse, “Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock,” New York Times, A1, 6/25/02]
* Despite this knowledge, Wal-Mart had to settle in January 2005 for violations that took place from 1998 to 2002, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $135,540 to settle U.S. Dept. of Labor charges that the company had violated provisions against minors operating hazardous machinery. [Ann Zimmerman, “Wal-Mart’s Labor Agreement Is Criticized by Former Official,” Wall Street Journal, 2/15/05]
* In March 2005, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $11 million to settle allegations that it had failed to pay overtime to janitors, many of whom worked seven nights a week. [Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 11/7/05, Forbes, 10/10/05]
* The State of Connecticut, investigating Wal-Mart’s child labor practices after the federal investigation ended, found 11 more violations. In June 2005, Connecticut fined Wal-Mart Stores Inc. $3,300 over child labor violations after a state investigation found that some minors lacked proper paperwork and were operating hazardous equipment at the stores. [“Wal-Mart Is Fined for Child Labor Violations,” Bloomberg News, June 22, 2005]
Eric
Sorry about the multiple post but anyone who says they care about working families but are patrons of Wal Mart are just living blindly or selfishly and the only working families you care about is your own. Which is also OK- but, you can’t have it both ways.
Here’s the facts behind your prices:
* The estimated total amount of federal assistance for which Wal-Mart employees were eligible in 2004 was $2.5 billion. [The Hidden Price We All Pay For Wal-Mart, A Report By The Democratic Staff Of The Committee On Education And The Workforce, 2/16/04]
* One 200-employee Wal-Mart store may cost federal taxpayers $420,750 per year. This cost comes from the following, on average:
o $36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families.
o $42,000 a year for low-income housing assistance.
o $125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families.
o $100,000 a year for the additional expenses for programs for students.
o $108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children’s health insurance programs (S-CHIP)
o $9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance.
# The first ever national report on Wal-Mart subsidies documented at least $1 billion in subsidies from state and local governments. That was three years ago. Its not known what that is up to now.
# A Wal-Mart official stated that “it is common” for the company to request subsidies “in about one-third of all [retail] projects.” This would suggest that over a thousand Wal-Mart stores have been subsidized.
Educate yourself on Wal Mart and then ask yourself is it worth it. Aaron, I think you’ll change your mind about a quick stop for a few things. Todd, you seem to refute facts or are justify unAmerican practices. And, to those union guys, what you did is exactly why anti-Union politicians get elected and your craft is shrinking. You went for the quick buck and didn’t focus on the big picture. Sort of like you guys who said Kerry would take your guns and Bush won’t so you vote for Bush. What about taking your job and giving incentives for outsourcing or downright subsidizing with your own tax dollars?
Eric
Eric,
You seem to have studied this issue quite closely. As far as the ruling against Walmart last week, that is exactly the way things are supposed to work. After penalties, Walmart will be forced to pay more than they would have had they followed the rules in the first place. It will also force them to place emphasis on making sure they follow all workplaces laws in the future.
While the statistics that you give may be true, untrue, or somewhere in between. But I have to take them with a grain of salt. Why? Because if a labor union were able to unionize Walmart, they would stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars in union dues. As an accountant that works a lot with statistics, I know how easy it is to manipulate them by failing to take into account a few things.
If Walmart’s labor practices are so poor, they’ll have trouble attracting workers. When Walmart proposed a Chicago location in recent years, many on the city commission did everything they could to keep them out. The most common arguments (in addition to the “poor labor conditions” argument) were that nobody would shop there and nobody would want to work there. The South Side location was denied, so Walmart located in a suburb just outside city limits. Before the store even opened, there were over 5,000 applications submitted.
Todd,
Did you even view the link I sent. It addresses this point. Don’t take my word for anything-ever. Look it up yourself.
I took offense to Aaron’s line:
“And yes, I know I risk a dressing down from the purists who never, ever set foot in the Wal-Mart, but most of you know that I’m speaking of a hard truth. In a small town where a Wal-Mart has carved out a major share of the retail economy, you don’t have many choices on some products. And as poor as Wal-Mart’s labor record is, they hire more local people than Amazon.com which is where many of the so-called labor purists (and, again, me) do our shopping for books, DVDs and “modern” goods that aren’t available at the mom and pop stores. If you’re boycotting Wal-Mart for political reasons, you may as well boycott Target, Amazon and everywhere that uses the same model of keeping costs low. And you better be able to afford a 20 percent hike in your family’s expenses, on top of rising food and gas prices.”
Coupled with the fact that the IBEW member in the story talked about the jobs Wal Mart gave some of them and how they all shop there.
Do your own research. No other business operates like Wal Mart and those cheap products come at a price that has direct impact on the community and its families.
You can decide what you value beyond that. Notice, I’m not advocating that Wal Mart unionizes. That’s another issue. Target is not union and their PAC and political support goes to Republican 2 to 1. But, their company treats their employees right in wages, hours, health and education benefits.
i was told by a mutual friend that Aaron is one of the future leaders on the Range. So, I’m a little more vested in him seeing what an insult this Wal Mart post is. Continued support of the business only furthers the burden on tax payers in the area as well as families.
Eric
Eric —
I get what you’re saying. Again, I repeat, this post was designed to get people thinking about effective ways to get a big company like Wal-Mart to use union labor for projects like the one at the center of this debate. I questioned, perhaps without a specific alternative in mind, the effectiveness of the old fashioned picket. That isn’t to belittle the people on the picket or the cause at hand, just a question.
In the minds of many, the struggle remains futile. How can we change that? I’d be interested in your thoughts.
I’ll take my lumps for what I said, but I’m not going to suddenly go “rah rah rah” when Wal-Mart is going to ring up another banner year at the expense of the people we seem to agree are getting the shaft on this deal. We’ve got to modernize our tactics.
Todd, Eric, don’t you guys think you should be out either working, or looking for jobs, instead bickering back and forth in cyberspace? Just a thought.