Businesspundit notes a subscription-only Fortune article on attempts to unionize WM:
Wal-Mart is the nation's largest employer, and not a single one of its 1.3 million workers ("associates" in Wal-Martese) is a union member. Changing that statistic, some union leaders argue, is the labor movement's most important challenge right now. "If we want to survive," says Stewart Acuff, organizing director of the AFL-CIO, "labor has no choice but to organize Wal-Mart." Though individual unions usually do not band together across turf lines for organizing drives, discussions are now underway across the labor community about what they call "the Wal-Mart problem." "What they do affects the standard of living across the globe," explains Acuff, referring to the retailer's ability to force...What they have done is raise the standard of living across the globe. The massive increase in the Chinese middle class might have something to do with the usually well-noted statistic that 85% of WM goods are produced in China. In the US, WM has lowered the wages of unionized grocery clerks; as a result, people who would have become grocery clerks are finding other means of employment at equivalent or higher wages--just not in grocers. (No, their real wages are NOT decreasing).
The Businesspundit has some more material than is available for free.
Posted by Kevin on May, 10 2004 at 10:49 AM
