This time in Kansas City:
More than 6,000 Wal-Mart managers today wrap up their annual meeting in Kansas City, where they reviewed performance and analyzed the coming year for the world's largest company.Has criticism actually built momentum? Sure, if momentum can be purchased with union money... Also, reclaimdemocracy.org was registered on October 11, 2002 in Bozeman, MT. The entire organization is not "recently formed". According to guidestar.org, it received $35K in contributions in 2002 and $56K in contributions in 2003. The local chapter is gung-ho against WM:But even the most focused managers couldn't miss recent discord that union and social activists have wrought on the giant retailer and the company's campaign to rebut it.
Outside Bartle Hall on Saturday, dozens of area residents � most of them union members �protested Wal-Mart's practices and policies.
�Wal-Mart is emblematic of the thinking that operational efficiency works best for everybody,� said Mary Lindsay, who helped organize the protest. �But there's a downside to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart hurts people, communities and democracy. It's about more than just low prices.�
Lindsay is an organizer of the Kansas City chapter of ReclaimDemocracy.org, a recently formed group that thinks corporations need to be more accountable to citizens.
While criticism of Wal-Mart is hardly new, it has built some momentum as the company has become the defendant in dozens of class-action lawsuits over allegedly unpaid work and a gender discrimination case that could become the biggest class-action lawsuit of its kind. Some former female employees of area Wal-Marts have submitted testimonials about their inability to obtain managerial posts at the company....
One of Wal-Mart's biggest critics is the AFL-CIO, which, along with some of its member unions, is planning a campaign to pressure the retailer into raising its wages and benefits. Reports indicate that the AFL-CIO, led by unions such as Service Employees International and the United Food and Commercial Workers, plans to spend $25 million this year, more than what has been spent against any single company.
And here's somebody that usually gets little press:
An official with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which fights unionism, said the AFL-CIO's motive is to get companies such as Wal-Mart to agree to unionize, whether employees want to or not.�This is a corporate campaign to inflict as much pain as possible on the company until it agrees to unionize without even an employee vote,� said Stefan Gleason, a vice president with the foundation
�It appears that the vast majority of Wal-Mart employees are thrilled to work for a company that provides such good opportunity, pay and benefits. Union organizers have had very little success in persuading even a minority of employees in any particular workplace even to seek an election to unionize.�
Posted by Kevin on January, 26 2005 at 12:15 PM
