Mark and Brian: Employees

EMPLOYEES

• In the last few years, well over 100 unfair labor practice charges have been lodged against Wal-Mart throughout the country, with 43 charges filed in 2002 alone
• Since 1995, the U.S. government has been forced to issue at least 60 complaints against Wal-Mart at the National Labor Relations Board
• Wal-Mart's labor law violations range from illegally firing workers who attempt to organize a union to unlawful surveillance, threats, and intimidation of employees who dare to speak out

Unions

• Workers have the to organize, which is protected by the National Labor Relations Act. This right is internationally recognized as a core labor standard and a basic human right.
• Labor Statistics in January 2004, union workers earn median weekly salaries of $760, compared to non-union workers' median weekly salaries of $599 – a difference of over 26 percent
• With not a single Wal-Mart store in the United States represented by a union, the company takes a pro-active role in maintaining its union-free status.
• Wal-Mart closes down stores and departments that unionize
• Wal-Mart has issued "A Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free," which provides managers with lists of warning signs that workers might be organizing, including "frequent meetings at associates' homes" and "associates who are never seen together start talking or associating with each other." The "Toolbox" gives managers a hotline to call so that company specialists can respond rapidly and head off any attempt by employees to organize.
• In 2000, when a small meatcutting department successfully organized a union at a Wal-Mart store in Texas, Wal-Mart responded a week later by announcing the phase-out of its meatcutting departments entirely. Because of deficient labor laws, it took the meatcutters in Texas three years to win their jobs back with an order that Wal-Mart bargain with their union. Rather than comply, Wal-Mart is appealing this decision.
• Wal-Mart closed its store in Jonquierre, Quebec in April 2005 after its employees received union certification. The store became the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America when 51 percent of the employees at the store signed union cards