Wal-Mart employee and labor relations
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As with many US retailers, Wal-Mart experiences a high rate of employee turnover (approximately 50% of employees leave every year, according to the company). Although they average nearly double the federal minimum wage, wages at Wal-Mart are about 20% less than at other retail stores. Founder Sam Walton once argued that his company should be exempt from the minimum wage.
Wages
Wal-Mart employees earn less than those performing similar jobs at other stores. As of 2001, according to US federal statistics, the average supermarket employee earned $10.35 per hour, industry-wide; in comparison, stock clerks at Wal-Mart made $8.23 per hour on average. A 2003 wage analysis reported that cashiers, the second most common job at Wal-Mart, earn approximately $7.92 per hour and work an average of 29 hours a week. This brings in annual wages of $11,948, about $1000 less than the United States federal poverty line for a parent and one child. [[Citing sources citation needed]]Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton once argued that his company should be exempt from the minimum wage, and took advantage of an exception in the minimum wage law that, at the time, excluded small businesses from having to pay the minimum wage. While the federal minimum wage in 1962 was $1.50 an hour, Walton regularly paid his employees only 50 to 70 cents per hour.[Can't Wal-Mart, a Retail Behemoth, Pay More?] The New York Times, May 4, 2005 Former managers have reported that they were judged by upper management based on their ability to keep payroll costs low, and that they sometimes pressured more senior, higher-paid employees, in the hopes that they would quit. [link]
In a move some say to appeal to critics of Wal-Mart's hourly wages practices, CEO Lee Scott has advocated a federally-mandated raise in the minimum wage. [link]
Costs to Social Services
Critics of Wal-Mart have argued that Wal-Mart indirectly incurs costs for federal social service programs, due to the low wages it pays its employees. A report by U.S. Democratic Party congressman George Miller argued that a 200-employee Wal-Mart store may indirectly cost federal taxpayers $420,750 to finance free-lunch and health-care programs for children of low-income Wal-Mart employees, tax credits for low-income families, and similar programs. [Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay For Wal-Mart] (pdf), A Report by the Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce U.S. House of Representatives Representative George Miller, Senior Democrat, February 16, 2004; [Wal-Marts Cost State, Study Says], San Francisco Chronicle, August 3, 2004Sebastian Mallaby, a self-described progressive, says that "it's ironic that Wal-Mart's enemies, who are mainly progressives," would be complain about Wal-Mart employees receiving Medicaid. He says: "In the 1990s progressives argued loudly for the reform that allowed poor Americans to keep Medicaid benefits even if they had a job. Now that this policy is helping workers at Wal-Mart, progressives shouldn't blame the company. Besides, many progressives favor a national health system. In other words, they attack Wal-Mart for having 5 percent of its workers receive health care courtesy of taxpayers when the policy that they support would increase that share to 100 percent." Mallaby, Sabastian [Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.] Washington Post. November 28, 2005; Page A21 However, given the company's current revenue it is argued that Wal-Mart could easily afford to pay benefits instead of relying on public welfare.
Working conditions
The report by congressman Miller alleged that in ten percent of Wal-Mart's stores, nighttime employees are sometimes locked inside, making them unable to leave. In some cases employees who had sustained injuries requiring medical attention were forced to wait inside the store for hours for a manager to arrive and unlock the door.Potential Hire Screening
Wal-Mart, like many large American corporations with low-wage employees, screens potential hires through a drug test, in addition to a multiple choice personality test, which asks applicants to express their level of agreement with statements such as "rules have to be followed to the letter at all times." (Ehrenreich, 124)Labor Laws
See Wal-Mart and Labor LawsHealth insurance
Georgia Survey
According to a September 2002 survey by the state of Georgia, 10,261 of the 166,000 children enrolled in PeachCare for Kids, the state's health-insurance program for uninsured children, had a parent working for Wal-Mart. For every four of its employees in Georgia, one Wal-Mart child was covered by the program. In contrast, the state's second-biggest employer, Publix, had one child in the program for every 22 employees. [link]In December 2004, Wal-Mart commissioned a nationwide survey from Segmentation Co., a division of consulting outfit Yankelovich. The survey showed the use of public-assistance health-care programs by children of Wal-Mart workers was at a similar rate to other retailers' employees, and at rates similar to the U.S. population as a whole. However, Wal-Mart has refused to release its survey, nor will it say which other retailers are included in the report. [link]
Internal Memo
On October 26, 2005, The New York Times reported that a Wal-Mart internal memo sent to the firm's board of directors advised trimming over $1 billion in health care expenses by 2011 through measures such as attracting a younger, implicitly healthier work force by offering education benefits. The memo also suggested giving sedentary Wal-Mart staffers, such as cashiers, more physically demanding tasks, such as "cart-gathering", and eliminating full-time positions in favor of hiring part-time employees who would be ineligible for the more expensive health insurance [link] — policy proposals which may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.According to the article, the memo accused Wal-Mart's lower paid employees of abusing emergency room visits, "possibly due to their prior experience with programs such as Medicaid", whereas such visits may actually be due to the reduced ability of uninsured or underinsured people to make timely appointments to see a regular physician. [link]
The memo reportedly also expressed concern that an employee with seniority earns more money, but is not more productive than a new employee.
Critics point to the story as evidence that Wal-Mart purports to be generous with its employee benefits, while in reality the company is working to cut such benefits by reducing the number of full-time and long-term employees and discouraging supposedly unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart. [link]
State Legislature Actions
On January 12 the Maryland legislature enacted a law that requires the retail giant to spend at least 8% of their payroll on health benefits - or put the money directly into the state's health program for the poor.[link]On January 19, "Fair Share Health Care" legislation in Wisconsin was defeated. Wal-Mart spokesperson Nate Hurst stated: "That this bill failed even to make it out of committee in the Wisconsin Assembly is a big setback to the Washington, D.C. union leaders driving these state-by-state attacks against large employers. We're hopeful that more state legislators across America -- like those in Wisconsin -- will come to realize that these bills are harmful to working families. Not only will they do nothing to control the cost of health care or improve access to health coverage, they will cost jobs and hurt economic growth. The American people want their legislators to resist special interest pressure and instead work with colleagues and businesses of all sizes to solve the health care challenges facing America."[link]
Opposition to unions
Meat cutters
In 2000, meat cutters in Jacksonville, Texas voted to unionize. Wal-Mart eliminated in-house meat-cutting jobs in favor of prepackaged meats on the claims that it cut cost and was a preventive measure to lawsuits. Wal-Mart also claims this nationwide closing of in-store meat packaging had been planned for many years and was not related to the unionization. In June 2003, a National Labor Relations Board judge ordered Wal-Mart to restore the meat department to its prior structure, complete with meat-cutting, and to recognize and bargain with the union over the effects of any change to case-ready meat sales. [Wal-Mart Butchers Force Anti-Union Retailer to Eat Crow], Labor Research Association July 7, 2003; [NLRB Judge Orders Wal-Mart To Bargain With UFCW In Texas] Labor News, [Wal-Martyrs] In These Times, Vol. 24, No. 12, 2000, [Wal-Mart Wins a Round In Its Struggle To Keep Unions At Bay] Voice of America, 25 February 2005; [Rally for union bid], Rocky Mountain News, February 24, 2005Canada
The documentary "Wal-Mart the High Cost of Low Prices" shows one successful unionization of Wal-Mart in Canada in 2004. (Jonquière in the province of Québec) but Wal-Mart closed the store within the year claiming the store had become unprofitable. According to Québec law, Wal-Mart must pay all workers the same wage until they are offered similar employment. Wal-Mart stated that it has no intention of re-opening the store, but the labor union and workers argued the store closing was a retaliation against unionization on the grounds that Wal-Mart has not sold the property.In September 2005, the Québec Labour Board ruled that the closing of a Wal-Mart store amounted to a reprisal against unionized workers and has ordered the company to compensate former employees.[link] Michael J. Fraser, the union's national director said; "Wal-Mart is trying to send a message to the rest of their employees that if they join a union the same thing could happen to them," The union will be filing unfair labor practice charges against Wal-Mart in Quebec.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has drives in at least 25 Canadian stores. Workers at the Jonquiere store received union certification in August 2004 and Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec has the only remaining unionized Wal-Mart in North America. The Quebec Labour Relations Board found the company guilty of harassing and intimidating workers trying to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union at another store in Ste-Foy, Quebec. [link]
Anti-Union tools
In 1970, Sam Walton resisted a unionization push by the Retail Clerks Union in two small Missouri towns by hiring a professional, John Tate, to lecture workers on the negative aspects of unions. On Tate's advice, he also took steps to instruct his workers on how the company had their best interests in mind, encouraging them to air concerns with managers and implementing a profit-sharing program. Shortly after this, Wal-Mart hired a consulting firm, Alpha Associates, to develop a union avoidance program. [link]The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) asserts that Wal-Mart maintains a phone hotline for managers to call if they suspect union activity. [Reclaim Democracy, Internal Documents of Wal-Mart] Including "A Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union-Free", A standard manual for all Wal-Mart managers.
Wal-Mart has an anonymous survey given to each one of its employees, called "Grassroots". The UFCW claims that the purpose of this survey is to let Wal-Mart calculate a Union Probability Index number for each facility, that tells them how likely a union is to form there. UFCW representatives also claim that Wal-Mart listens in on store telephone calls and e-mails, looking for signs of unionization.[link] Wal-Mart also uses this survey to understand associate concerns including pay, relationship with managers, and views on managerial policy and leadership.
It was the opinion of the National Labor Relations Board that Wal-Mart had an illegal section of its anti-handbilling/anti-solicitation policy which according to the NLRB stated that Wal-Mart “strives to provide a solicitation-free atmosphere for our customers” and later added "Our Associates are to be focused on being productive and providing excellent service."; which in the opinion of the NLRB was determined to be too broad and intended to keep associates from receiving solicited material while in store and off the clock. In 2003, Wal-Mart amended this policy in an informal settlement with the National Labor Relations Board so that it now disallows any form of solicitation to take place within the store. [link]
In March of 2005, Tom Coughlin was forced to resign from Wal-Mart's board of directors. The company claims that they found evidence of embezzlement by Coughlin. Coughlin claims that the money was used for an anti-union project involving cash bribes paid to employees of the United Food and Commercial Workers union in exchange for a list of names of Wal-Mart employees that had signed union cards. Coughlin also claims the money was unofficially paid to him, by Wal-Mart, as compensation for his anti-union efforts.[#endnote_Coughlin] Coughlin's claims have, according to the New York Times, seemed less credible with his agreement to plead guilty to federal wire fraud and tax evasion. As the Times notes: "...the lack of evidence that he used the missing money to spy on unions raise doubts as to whether such a project even existed." [link]
Workforce diversity
See Wal-Mart workforce diversity.See also
References
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