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WASHINGTON, DC – American Rights at Work today launched WalMartWorkersRights.org,
a website spotlighting the retail giant’s unfair practices in the
workplace. The site will also serve as a platform to enable the public
to communicate their opposition to Wal-Mart’s anti-union behavior.
“When Wal-Mart employees attempt to stand
up for themselves and try to form a union, they face threats,
propaganda, discrimination, intimidation, and even firings in
retaliation,” said David Bonior, Chair of American Rights at Work.
“Why won’t Wal-Mart give its workers a free choice and a fair chance to
form a union?”
Wal-Mart’s efforts to squash unionization in its stores are swift and overwhelming:
• The company taps into calls and emails
from stores around the country to monitor whether anyone is talking
about forming a union.
• Store officials receive a toolkit to “Remaining Union Free” and are
encouraged to call a hotline at the first sign of any interest in a
union.
• Wal-Mart dispatches a rapid-response anti-union squad at any indication of its employees considering union formation.
Wal-Mart employees who simply want to
negotiate for decent wages, affordable health care, and basic
protections on the job encounter huge obstacles and overwhelming
resistance. The company’s employees earn 25 percent less than workers
with union representation in comparable positions. Many have no health
insurance at all, resorting to Medicaid and other state programs in
order to provide coverage for their families.
“Wal-Mart employees – many of them college
students, single parents, the elderly – barely make enough to cross the
poverty line, while Wal-Mart rakes in billions in profits,” said Mary
Beth Maxwell, Executive Director of American Rights at Work. “It’s
time to tell Wal-Mart that enough is enough, and that is why we are
urging the public to speak out by visiting WalMartWorkersRights.org.”
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