National protests Nov. 21 launch Justice@Wal-Mart drive

A coalition of unions and non-profit groups staged rallies at Wal-Mart stores in 100 cities in 40 states Nov. 21 to protest labor practices at the nation's largest retailer.

In Oregon, rallies were held at Eastport Plaza in Southeast Portland, where more than 250 people marched in front of the store and along busy 82nd Avenue; and in Springfield and Talent, near Ashland. In Washington State, rallies took place in Renton and Spanaway.

The protests launched a long-term campaign Justice @ Wal-Mart by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW).

"If Wal-Mart wants to be America's store, then Wal-Mart must respect American values," said UFCW International President Doug Dority. The 1.4-million worker chain, headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., is notorious for actions that contradict those values, he said.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the world's largest private company with 3,200 U.S. stores and 1,100 locations worldwide. The company posted $218 billion in sales last year.

At the same time, Wal-Mart is one of the biggest violators of human, civil and workers' rights and is virulently anti-union, labor and civil rights leaders said.

Jeff McDonald, a business representative of Tigard-based UFCW Local 555, said the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued more than 40 complaints against the company in 25 states in recent years for labor law violations.

Thirty-one NLRB cases are pending before administrative law judges, NLRB spokesman David Parker told Associated Press.

Wal-Mart also is fighting state and federal lawsuits filed by workers who accuse the company of forcing them to work hours off the clock. More than 400 employees from 24 Wal-Mart's 27 Oregon stores are involved in a class-action lawsuit that opened Nov. 20 that alleges the retailer cheated employees out of overtime pay, AP reported.

"Wal-Mart truly has declared war on American workers and America's unions," said national AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. "We must no longer say it is someone else's fight. It is our fight, too, and the survival of our movement could well depend on its success."

Because of its size, Wal-Mart exerts tremendous influence on the practices of other retailers.

"Wal-Mart is setting the lowest common denominator for wages and benefits - its workers are paid $2 to $3 an hour less than union workers who perform similar jobs; less than 38 percent of its workers are covered by company-provided health insurance," McDonald said.

Wal-Mart admits it prices its health care benefits so high that its workers and their families are forced to turn to public institutions - such as health clinics - for care.

"Wal-Mart is at the center of the nation's health care crisis," Dority declared. " The health care costs for the 933,000 employees (who do not have coverage) doesn't disappear: they get shifted to other employers and to taxpayers."

"Every dollar of health care costs that Wal-Mart shifts drives up the costs and drives down the coverage for everybody else, because (other) employers cannot afford the health care cost increases."

Calling Wal-Mart a "corporate outlaw," Dority said the retailer has continually fought UFCW organizing drives by illegally firing pro-union workers, harassing and spying on unionists, and shutting departments - such as its meat-cutting department after meatcutters in one south Texas store unionized.

The national coalition includes the AFL-CIO, other major unions, the Alliance of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the National Organization for Women, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Citizen Action, the Feminist Majority, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, 9to5, the National Interfaith Committee on Worker Justice, and the National Consumers League.

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