the smedley log - suburban scrawl

A communist wrapped inside a capitalist inside an enigma…

(This post was at least partly spurred by a recent guest post at Ales Rarus—better late than never on the acknowledgement, I hope)

From Wal-Mart Facts – Key Topics:

Wal-Mart’s position on unions. It’s all about taking care of our people. If we do that and do what is right for our communities, we will be fine. We will continue to foster an environment of open communications and encourage our associates to express their ideas, comments and concerns. We are not against unions. They may be right for some companies but there is simply no need for a third party to come between our associates and their managers.

They may be right for some companies but there is simply no need for a third party to come between our associates and their managers? – really? And I’m sure the great corporate citizen and employer, Wal-Mart, leaves that decision entirely to its employees, with no undue influence being exercised from corporate headquarters.

Or is it as it seems (and the statement suggests)—does the corporation unilaterally decide what’s best for its employees? If, in fact the workers agree with Wal-Mart’s assessment, I’m sure union efforts will die down rather soon.

I’ve previously cited from my own experience that unions don’t like to waste millions of dollars trying to organize workers who tell them to get lost. I know how organizing drives generally operate; organizers don’t keep approaching workers who are happy with the treatment they get from their employer. So where a sustained organizing effort is occurring, a substantial number of people have to be giving union organizers positive feedback about the need for unionization.

In this sense, the vast majority of demand for unionization is created by conditions within the employer’s control. If workers are happy, unions don’t generally come knocking. I make this point for a reason; it gets tiresome to hear people with no experience on the union side who paint unions as stores of untold fortunes poured endlessly into organizing companies whose workers flatly reject unionization. It just ain’t so. And on this level, union organizing is remarkably similar to free market economics: there has to be a demand.

On the other hand, Wal-Mart’s suggestion that they take care of their own sounds suspiciously like the sentiments of a socialist regime that tells you how well off their people are, even while the rest of the world can see them languishing.

It’s sort of like a communist wrapped inside a capitalist inside the enigma that is Wal-Mart.

very interesting…. in the book “The Working Poor,” there’s a story about a woman who works her butt off at a Wal-Mart, receives nothing but praise from her manager, but keeps getting passed over for management positions herself b/c she doesn’t have teeth. See Wal-Mart doesn’t pay enough for her to be able to get decent false teeth, but won’t advance her without them. It sounds like a strange situation, but I’m sure not entirely unique. And although I’m by no means an expert on unions, it would seem that when corporations—such as Walmart—are employing primarily people who have little education & are not earning very much, those people are entitled to some sort of protection & representation.

[…] y on the belief that the company’s 3-gallon jar of pickles is socioeconomic sadism. Here, the smedley log offers still another reason why it’s important to never, under any circumst […]

Thanks for responding.

I guess a point that I lost while writing this post was the idea that, while I have quite a bit of union experience under my belt, I don’t necessarily believe a union is needed in every single workplace. There are some companies that truly do right by their employees, and it isn’t just the companies that pay union scale, either. Some of these honorable employers simply find ways to help their employees and to treat them with a level of respect that you simply won’t see reflected in your typical Wal-Mart store (which, by the way, I go into from time to time—just to remind myself, but I never buy anything).

What, no mention of Lightwave’s Wal-Mart post at my blog?

You’re right, Eric—that completely slipped my mind. I’ll amend accordingly.

Thanks!

I believe that unions can serve an important purpose, I just can’t agree with the basic premise that Unions never try to sell themselves where they’re not wanted. The folks at unions trying to get more members are in a marketing position. Frankly, they wouldn’t be doing their job if they weren’t just responding to demand, but trying to drum up more demand.

One only has to look at Nucor Steel. Time and again the employees of Nucor have turned away unions. In one telling case, workers at a Nucor plant literally ran after union folks, chasing them away while waving tools threateningly over their heads (I only wish someone had taken a photo, I’m sure it would be worthy of a good chuckle).

The AFL-CIO simply can’t stand that Nucor is both successful and non-unionized, and does everything in its power to force Nucor into unionization or increase employee discontent. One example states “AFL-CIO says Nucor should make commitments before getting tax breaks”. What’s the AFL-CIO’s interest here, if not to apply pressure?

Let’s not kid ourselves here. Unions have a product to sell and a desire to grow. If that means going where they’re not wanted or applying pressure, they’re more than willing.

Thanks for throwing your thoughts into the mix. And believe it or not, I agree to a point on the idea that unions are selling a product.

They’re more than willing to test the waters anywhere. In that, you’re absolutely right, but you usually won’t see a sustained union organizing drive where there is this sort of opposition. To look at this from a union perspective, you still have to understand the immense expense, across the board, that comes with sustained organizing—and then couple that with the limited funds most unions are dealing with.

Of course, I have had nothing to do with steel organizing, so my expertise in this particular case is limited to reading about it, not really having a first-hand knowledge what happened on the ground level. I can’t honestly attest to the nature of the workers involved in the chasing, whether they represented a majority, or what they had been told behind closed doors with respect to the union organizers. My experience with the Wal-Mart situation goes a little deeper, though. So, on the Wal-Mart front, my thesis is generally accurate (at least according to experience).

My first exposure to Wal-Mart in a labor sense was seeing a friend of mine being accused of consorting with labor activists, and subsequently being fired for showing up two minutes late the next day (which as far as I’ve been able to gather is not even Wal-Mart’s normal reaction to an isolated instance of tardiness). That started the souring, but a couple years later, when I unwittingly wore a Teamster hat into my local Wal-Mart store and was stalked by a low-level manager and ultimately pressured out of the store (at a time when union organizing was not high on my list of priorities—I only figured out as I was leaving that there was a connection between the treatment I was receiving and the hat I forgot I was wearing).

That lit the fire beneath me, and I have since interacted with many Wal-Mart “associates” who have been very skeptical of their company’s priorities when it comes to employee treatment and compensation. Many of these folks don’t chase you away when you asked them if they want to fill out a union card—they simply look over their shoulders in fear before doing so. That always struck me as a company that was watching their employees, not necessarily looking out for them.

But the dissatisfaction of the employees is nothing new. It precedes the current widespread effort to expose some of Wal-Mart’s more questionable practices by a long stretch. You’d be shocked how many long-time associates at Wal-Mart are quietly cheering for unions—but remain totally afraid of the company finding out.

That should tell you something.