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Wal-Mart Mobilizing against the Employee Free Choice Act 		Print
sad smiley faceHow do you know you're doing something right for working people?  When Wal-Mart starts "mobilizing" against you.

Today the Wall-Street Journal came out with a disturbing report saying that Wal-Mart is organizing its store supervisors against Democrats and other candidates who support the Employee Free Choice Act .
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.
Unfortunately for Wal-Mart workers, this intimidation is nothing new.  It's actually part and parcel for Wal-Mart's  business plan.  When Wal-Mart employees stand up for themselves and try to form a union, they face threats, propaganda, discrimination, intimidation, and even firings in retaliation.

Wal-Mart is carefully toeing the line of legality in what it can say to its employees.  According to the Wall Street Journal:
The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.
What Wal-Mart is doing for November's political elections is what it, and hundreds of other anti-union companies, do all the time when workers say they want a union: initimidating them to go against their own self-interests.

The most ironic part of this news is that Wal-Mart's political ally, the Chamber of Commerce, sees itself as "David" versus the supposed "Goliath" of unions in the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act.
"This is a David-and-Goliath confrontation, but we believe we'll have enough stones in the sling to knock this out," said Mr. Steven Law, chief legal officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Maybe, if David first set up a front group to defame Goliath with a $30 million television advertising campaign before he loaded up his slingshot.
 
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