UAW joins UFCW campaign to 'Wake up, Walmart'

A father and son stand up for Walmart workers. UFCW PHOTO

You’ve probably seen Walmart’s red, white and blue ads touting how the world’s largest retail outlet will save your family money.

But there’s another story Walmart won’t tell you.

When Sam Walton opened his first store in the late 1940s in Newport, Ark., he developed a unique business model. By pressuring suppliers to give him their lowest prices and keeping his own store prices low, Walton was able to beat his competition and gain market share.

And he did it on the backs of workers.

Walton’s strategy was to hire as few people as possible, pay them as little as he could get away with and fight union organizing with a passion.

In the early 1960s, the minimum wage law was changed to include small businesses. Walton had been paying his workers, largely rural farmers seeking steady incomes, as little as 50 cents an hour. The newly mandated federal minimum wage was $1.15, and a federal court ordered Walton to pay back wages and double-time penalties.

Walmart cut the checks then Walton held meetings with all employees and told them, “I’ll fire anyone who cashes the check.”

In 1985, as Americans suffered through a recession, Walton launched his “Made in America” campaign, committing Walmart to buy American products if suppliers could get within 5 percent of an imported product’s price. (The reality is that most of the products sold at Walmart are imported.)

Fast forward to 2009.

A coalition of labor unions, including the UAW, wants to make Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, a responsible corporation.

Despite their ongoing public relations efforts, Walmart remains a company whose business is not about lower prices, but about more and more wealth for the Walton family heirs.

In a new “Wake up, Walmart” campaign, the UAW has joined the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) to stop the Arkansas-based mega-retailer from continuing to do what it does best: transforming our economy for the worse. This is how they do it:

• By dramatically changing the face of our communities by driving smaller “mom and pop” stores out of business.

• By systematically reducing workers’ benefits and using loopholes in labor laws to compel workers to resort to federal programs or expensive emergency rooms for their health care needs.

• By shifting jobs from U.S. cities and towns to under-regulated factories around the world.

• By shifting billions in employee health care costs to taxpayers and other employers.

• By paying workers average wages that won’t support a family.

• By systematically discriminating against women and minority workers.

On Labor Day, UFCW President Joe Hansen challenged Walmart to live up to its advertised image and develop a positive agenda for real change by working with labor, civil rights, community and faith organizations.

“No other private, for-profit enterprise in the history of America has had the economic impact of Walmart. ... The ‘Wake up Walmart’ campaign wants people to know that what happens to Walmart workers affects every American,” Hansen said.

The UFCW has worked for years with a coalition of labor unions to change Walmart’s labor practices, said Meagan Scott, campaign director. “Our campaign is simply designed to help Walmart become a better corporate citizen.”

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger acknowledged our union’s commitment to the UFCW campaign.

“The only way to change Walmart’s despicable, anti-worker practice is to pressure the company to become a better member of our communities. We have made dramatic changes in the way other companies have treated their workers, and we are determined to do that with Walmart,” he said.

UAW Local 892 President Mark Caruso recently mobilized his members to work with local businesses to stop Walmart from building near Saline, Mich.

“The UAW fights hard at the bargaining table for the good working conditions, wages and benefits that built the American middle class,” Caruso said. “Walmart’s anti-worker, anti-union business practices are doing exactly the opposite: paying workers part-time wages with no benefits. It’s a struggle we have to win, or we’ll all be making Walmart wages with no benefits.”

John Hammond