Hello Monday, the Feds are charging Walmart with workers’ rights violations in 14 states.

Damn fine way to start a week, but we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled depression inducing news tomorrow. Al Jazzera has an article written by Lucy Nicholson for Reuters, which was posted on Thursday (I try to blog in advance).  The national Labor relations Board (NLRB) issued complains on Wednesday alleging Walmart violated labor laws in 14 states through actions taken against striking workers. BOOM!

NLRB’s general counsel’s office issued a complaint related to Walmart representatives appearing on national news broadcasts threatening to retaliate against workers if they went on strike. Seriously? I kind of expected more from Walmart…getting sloppy. Additionally, they fired and disciplined workers for participating in the strikes. According to the complaint 19 employees were fired “allegedly as a result of their participation in activities protected by the National Labor Relations Act.”

Walmart has known about the impending complaints since November 2013. Spokewoman for Walmart, Brooke Buchanan said, “We believe that our actions were valid. We take out obligations very seriously. We look forward to sharing our side of the facts in these cases with a judge.”

Reminder that the NLRB is a federal agency; they investigate a lot of allegations made by employees. More than half are dismissed. I’m not saying this will be dismissed, just setting up the context.  The Walmart investigation looks like the allegations hold water, and settlements failed. Most of the allegations focused on Walmart’s management after the strikes in stores in California, Kentucky, Texas, Washington, etc. in May and June of 2013.

Employees received verbal and written warnings of formal reprimands and were disciplined after the strikes. [As you remember the strikes were for, heathcare, fair wages, and improved working conditions.] The complaints also allege that Walmart misclassified the workers’ absence as unexcused instead of participating in legally protected strikes. I’m not surprised by this allegation at all, but it is kind of a big deal, if employers can just decide your strike doesn’t have merit.

Walmart has until January 28^th to respond to the NLRB’s fining. Next step will be for an NLRB administrative law judge to oversee a trial and determine if any laws were violated. Then a five-member board will adopt or reject the judge’s findings. 

Note: Apparently, Walmart joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. 

Another day, another act of Walmart stupidity

Don’t get me wrong. I hate Walmart, but sometimes I wonder about their PR people. Do they have PR people? Are these people being paid minimum wage? Or is Walmart so powerful and eliminated so much of the competition that they no longer need PR people? The answer to these questions doesn’t really matter. What matters is the meta experience of Walmart employees that are aware them make a poverty wage and the store that employees them is collecting food for them.

Take a minute. Throw something. I’ll wait. I threw a mug…it didn’t break.

So this is happening in Canton, Ohio. Walmart claims that it is proof employees are looking out for one another by trying to provide Thanksgiving meals to their coworkers. Of course, everyone else things it is proof the company doesn’t pay enough to survive. Olivera Perkins wrote the story for The Plain Dealer.

This food drive is in employee only areas out of the line of sight of customers, because can’t let your customers know something like that. It should be noted that Walmart employees go on strike  today (Monday) in Cincinnati and Dayton.

Naturally, employees and those trying to organize them are pretty angry about all this because I don’t know pay your employees. Kory Lundberg, Walmart spokesman, claims the food drive is proof employees care about one another: “It is for associates who have had some hardships come up. Maybe their spouse lost a job.

“This is part of the company’s culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships.”

Lundberg asserts that the food drive was decided at a store level in Canton. This is all in the wake of more Walmart strikes across the states. The people involved in these strikes are looking for fair pay, safe working conditions, etc. The activists and organizers are working on something for Black Friday, but no one is talking about specifics at least to the press.

This isn’t a new drive at the Canton Walmart, and some people are wondering why it is a big deal now. Employees seem mixed; some think it is useful and kind while others feel ashamed and demoralized by it. I’m not going to get into pay rates, but even by the spokesman’s assert average rate still only comes about to about $25,000 per year, and it is assumed he went high on his rate.

You can read more from Allison Kilkenny. I really don’t understand how anyone can be in favor of the Walmart model, which is essentially short-term profits over long-term sustainability resulting in inequity, poverty, and hunger. Good job guys.

UFCW is considering rejoining the AFL-CIO next month

I know. I read that and went what? But it looks like it is true. Mike Elk had the exclusive for In These Times. I know what you’re thinking, wait they are separate to begin with? Just kidding, I make my own fun.

The UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) broke off from the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) back in 2005, but UFCW frequently cooperates with the AFL-CIO because that’s kind of how things have to be done to get anywhere. However, Elk’s sources within the AFL-CIO say the UFCW are in talks to rejoin the AFL-CIO bringing its 1.3 million members with it. The UFCW are expected to vote at the annual convention in Chicago this August, and it is expected to pass because of the support from leadership.

So back in 2005, several large unions split from the AFL-CIO including the UFCW, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Brotherhood of Carpenters, the Laborers’ Union, Unite Here, and the United Farm Workers of America to form Change to Win, a rival federation. There is some controversy over the split including allegations an underlying motivation was to cut down on dues; Change to Win charges about half the dues per member as the AFL-CIO does.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has pushed for the reunification of the labor movement (and its 14 million members) since his election in 2009 so this would be a pretty big victory for him. Change to Win has lost some of its membership including Unite Here, who voted to rejoin the AFL-CIO. However, the UFCW would be the largest to come back. Elk rightly points out this begs the question: will any of the other members, the SEUI, the Teamsters, or the United Farmworkers, enter talks to rejoin the AFL-CIO? Elk’s requests for comment went unanswered.

Trumka has courted the UFCWs for a while; memorably back in March when he joined the UFCW in criticizing the Obama administration public relations event emphasizing jobs for returning veterans with Wal-Mart. UFCW launched Our Wal-Mart.

The details of the potential union aren’t known yet. Elk expects the AFL-CIO to offer some kind of deal like discounted dues, as motivation. Other discussions to be had are about leadership, where UFCW officers will fit in and if the AFL-CIO will take on issues the UFCW cares about.

The Wal-Mart question is where this all gets the most interesting. The AFL-CIO have vast resources, which could be used to really take on Wal-Mart, but at this point we don’t know how much of their resources will be devoted to that. All that said, Wal-Mart isn’t going down without a fight, and it will probably be bad. As we've seen with before and most recently with their threats to the DC Council.

I go back on forth on labor unification. Part of me thinks labor (like everyone) is more powerful when acting as one. Of course, this can happen through coalition building. There is also a history of a power struggle within organized labor with special populations not getting much attention, recognition, or power. Of course, at this point everyone recognizes that low-wage women and people of color are the future of organized labor. But that means, old labor is going to have to be more inclusive, and while they are running to embrace the low-wage retail and service industry, I haven't seen them do quite as much in other highly gendered and raced fields such as home health aids and domestic care work. The later of which has been scoring some pretty huge victories in recent years with the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights (New York, Hawaii, and Oregon have passed it with California still trying, I think). I’m looking forward to what is going to happen.

Walmart unionbusting? You don't say...

So I’d kind of want Josh Eidelson to be my boyfriend. The Frisky has this sarcastic “be my boyfriend” column, but while I’m joking there is no sarcasm here. We could just talk about why Walmart blows for hours. Le sigh.

Eidelson wrote a piece Monday on a VP over at Walmart potentially admitting to union busting. Walmart Vice President of Communications David Tovar told reporter Susan Berfield, Bloomberg Businessweek, when asked about the labor campaign facing Walmart:

“We have human resources teams all over the country who are available to talk to associates, and we will get questions about joining a union. We would say, ‘Let us remind you of all that Walmart offers, and of what might go away. Quarterly bonuses might go away, vacation time might go away.’”

 So that is about all the article in Businessweek says. Walmart didn’t respond immediately to any of Eidelson’s requests for comment. However, they eventually responded. My favorite Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman responded to Eidelson’s request for comments. He said that Tovar’s quotes “as published: lack “additional context.” Additionally, Fogleman said, “David’s comments were intended to illustrate that there are no guarantees in the collective bargaining process. Everything is on the table and subject to negotiation, up or down, by both sides. We believe that is an important fact for our associates to know, especially given that Walmart’s pay and benefits package typically meet or exceed those at a majority of our competitors, including those that are unionized.”

After I read that I heard Dwight Schrute say “FALSE.”

Of course, we already know that Walmart and companies like it threaten their employees to prevent unionization. It is a large concern of labor leaders because US law doesn’t restrain companies from threatening workers who aim to unionize. This is because minor threats to punish workers for organizing yield minor penalties and employers can intimidate workers though threats as predictions without breaking any laws. It looks like usually the employers threatened wage cuts or plant closures according to Cornell Director of Labor Education and Research Kate Bronfenbrenner.

Former NLRB attorney Jeff Hirsch was asked about Tovar’s Businessweek’s comments and said: “These types of comments (and worse) are extremely common and effective.” Hirsch pointed out this isn’t a far cry from the mandatory on-the-clock “captive audience” meetings, and the implicit threats.

Now, back to the legality of this. So can employers threaten actions like these? No, but they can predict them. So you can’t say if you want a union we’re going to cut your wages, but you can say if you get a union then we might have to cut your wages.

Lance Compa, a labor law professor at Cornell, believes the comments described by Tovar might be a violation of labor law, but depending on the context. Compa said, “To be safe management normally has to couch the possible loss of benefits in a discussion about collective bargaining, saying that bargaining is a two way street, wages and benefits are negotiable, management has to right to bargain hard, you might lose some benefits, you might gain some benefits, maybe nothing will change except you’ll be paying dues, and so on.”

Last month OUR Walmart filed an NLRB charge that noted a different statement Tovar made to the media as a threat, specifically if workers didn’t show on Black Friday, “depending on the circumstances, there could be consequences.”