Wal-Mart Is Sued by 1.6 Million Workers
In Biggest Civil Rights Case in History

For several years, the United Food and Commercial Workers, one of the largest unions with 1.3 million members, has tried to organize the workers at Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in the world. But it has failed to unionize even one of the giant retailer's 3,586 stores

Wal-Mart executives said that the reason for the union's failure was that their employees, called "associates," were happy to work for the company, despite evidence that wages were lower (averaging $8 an hour) and health insurance benefits were skimpier (with waiting periods of months for eligibility), than those in unionized food markets.

The UFCW appears to have little relevance for Wal-Mart's workers, many of whom are using the courts to fight for their rights. They have filed dozens of lawsuits for unpaid overtime work, sex and racial discrimination and being forced to "work off the clock."

Wal-Mart is now faced with a monumental sex discrimination class action lawsuit, involving 1.6 million current women employees and those formerly employed since 1998, making it the largest such case in history.

Since November 2001, Wal-Mart has been a defendant in 28 complaints brought by the National Labor Relations Board, citing anti-union activities, such as threats, interrogations and disciplinary actions.

The lawsuit cites evidence that while 65% of the company's hourly workers are women, they hold only 33% of the managerial jobs. There are hundreds of women employees prepared to tell their own stories of how they were discriminated against in job classifications, wage awards and promotions.

Wal-Mart has also come under increasing attack from communities that regard its continuing expansion as a threat to their local businesses and a burden on taxpayers. The company, founded in 1962 in Bentonville, Arkansas, is being subjected to some of the harshest criticism in years.

Wal-Mart fears that unfavorable publicity about its alleged unfair treatment of its 700,000 women employees may result in a loss of women customers. The National Organization for Women last September named the company as its fifth National Merchant of Shame over labor issues. The company has reacted by launching a major advertising campaign to assure the public, especially its women customers, that it treats its workers fairly.

In 2000, a majority of about a dozen meatcutters at a Wal-Mart store in Jacksonville, Texas, voted to join the UFCW, but the union failed to expand its toehold to organize the workers in the store's other departments. Shortly after, the company closed its butcher departments at Jacksonville and other stores. That, apparently, quashed the union organizing campaign.

The UFCW has preferred not to discuss publicly why it has been unable to unionize a single Wal-Mart store. Nor is there any evidence that the strategists at AFL-CIO national headquarters have come up with some practical formula for organizing at least a few of the company's supermarkets.

As long as Wal-Mart remains immune from unionization, it will serve as a symbol for other giant corporations to maintain a "union-free environment." And it will cause employers in unionized stores to ask for concessions in wages and benefits so they can compete with their dominant competitor.

If the AFL-CIO is ever to make progress in organizing Wal-Mart and other major employers of labor, it must enlist an army of volunteer organizers from among its 13 million members. It should call upon its 600 central labor councils to target Wal-Mart stores in their jurisdiction for a full-scale organizing campaign that will include allies in their communities.

Let's see how many central labor councils will accept the challenge, and how much support they'll get from the AFL-CIO leadership.

Our weekly "LaborTalk" and "Labor and the War" columns can be viewed at our Web site www.laboreducator.org. Union members who wish information about the AFL-CIO rank-and-file reform movement should visit www.rankandfileaflcio.org.