UFCW airs new Wal-Mart strategy

By DON McINTOSH, Associate Editor

To 250 union shop stewards from grocery stores throughout Oregon, Mike Leonard delivered an unexpected message.

"We have to start going to Wal-Mart," Leonard said, "because America is already shopping there." Leonard, head of the Department of Strategic Programs of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), had come to Wilsonville April 24 to address UFCW Local 555's annual Steward Summit. Leonard's department has but one mission - to deal with Wal-Mart.

For over a decade, Wal-Mart has been moving from retail into grocery, and from non-union markets into markets where UFCW represents workers. That means the company is on a collision course with union members' livelihoods.

"They're going to have to come into areas where there are strong unions and fight for your jobs, one grocery bag at a time," Leonard said.

Wal-Mart's growth is legendary: 1979 was the first year the company had more than $1 billion in annual sales; last year its sales were $247 billion, netting $6.7 billion in after-tax profit. In 1988, it opened its first "supercenter" -a category-defying store that combines retail, grocery and a dozen other departments. By 1994, it had 100 supercenters, 500 by 1995, and 1,000 by 2001, and it's planning for 2,000 supercenters by 2006.

Leonard pointed to three reasons for Wal-Mart's success:
* They have the most advanced technology and distribution;
* They use their market clout to negotiate from their suppliers a 15 to 25 percent price break over their competition; and
* They have a 20 to 30 percent advantage in labor costs.

That third factor - low wages and meager benefits - is the reason Wal-Mart poses a threat to the living standards of other workers, not just UFCW members.

In every labor market where Wal-Mart has a presence, the company's labor practices exert a downward pressure on local wages, Leonard said.

"Wal-Mart has been a 'third party' in contract negotiations all over the country. They're a serious factor in lowering the wages in union contracts."

As goes Wal-Mart, so goes America. Leonard points out that in 1970, the country's largest employer was General Motors, with 350,000 workers. Overwhelmingly union, they earned $17.50 an hour plus health, pension and vacation benefits and cost-of-living increases. Today, the country's largest employer is Wal-Mart, with 800,000 workers. They earn an average hourly wage of $7.50, with no defined benefit pension, and inadequate health care.

Wal-Mart is the biggest employer in 25 states. They set the standard for wages and labor practices. "This becomes what kind of economy you have, what kind of America you have," Leonard told the stewards.

The conclusion is inescapable, Leonard says: UFCW's 830,000-strong retail membership can't maintain its wages without raising up Wal-Mart's 800,000 U.S. employees.

The traditional way to raise standards - the method that worked for GM workers - was unionizing. And UFCW has attempted to unionize Wal-Mart stores around the country. But so far the campaigns have been without success, with the company putting enormous resources into fighting off union drives.

Leonard gave the UFCW stewards a taste of what they're up against with a showing of the union-produced video "War on the Workers," [view online at: www.walmartswaronworkers.com ], which details Wal-Mart's anti-union strategy.

The union still has active campaigns in Nevada, Texas, Michigan and Kentucky, but it has changed its strategy, Leonard said. At this stage, he says he would classify the approach more as agitation than a traditional organizing campaign.

Leonard thinks of his department as a kind of R&D (research and development) for the labor movement.

"We've run campaigns just to learn what they'll do," he said.

Leonard said the union is learning a different way to communicate, aiming its message long-term at entire communities. Union-produced radio shows exclusively about Wal-Mart now air in Michigan, Nevada and Kentucky; the union buys AM radio slots and spreads their range via webcast.

"We have to build a movement before we can build a campaign," Leonard said.

That's where shopping at Wal-Mart comes in. Leonard said union members should still shop union where they can, and buy American if possible. But it's also important that union members who do shop at Wal-Mart wear their union insignia and talk to Wal-Mart employees about how unions have changed members' lives for the better. In many places, Wal-Mart is the only store. In Florida, there's not a single union store, but there are 150 Wal-Mart supercenters.

Meanwhile, UFCW and allies in the labor movement and elsewhere will continue putting pressure on Wal-Mart politically, legally and in the public eye. Every time the company gets a bad name for misconduct, that adds to public pressure to clean up its act. Every time laws are introduced to require the company to pick up health care costs or carry its weight in society, it points toward the end goal of making Wal-Mart a good corporate citizen. Every time a civil rights, gender discrimination or unpaid overtime lawsuit is filed, it puts pressure on the company to improve labor conditions.

"Then, even if we never organize these workers, we've benefited them," Leonard said.

And benefiting Wal-Mart workers will make a difference for UFCW workers, he said, because it raises the floor. The lower the floor, the more drag it exerts on other wages.

"If we come together and act as a movement against a single employer and use the clout we have, we can win."

Leonard said his department used to be known internally as "the department of lost causes." "Now," he said, "I really feel like the tide is turning against Wal-Mart.

"Wal-Mart is either going to change the way it behaves, or people aren't going to shop there, or they're not going to grow, or the workers will unionize."

Wal-Mart "Site fight" in Lebanon

Ballots go out in the mail this week in Lebanon, Oregon, on a citizen initiative that would require current and future annexations to be approved by a vote of the people.

It's an initiative led by UFCW, along with Wal-Mart opponents in the community; UFCW volunteers collected 500 of the 11,000 signatures that put it on the local ballot.

Wal-Mart wants Lebanon to annex 14 acres of adjacent land so that company can build a new 185,000-square-foot supercenter. If the annexation goes ahead, Wal-Mart would convert one of the last drive-in theaters in the state to use it as a parking lot for the new store. In addition, it would abandon its old store a block away. That store was the first Wal-Mart store to open in Oregon. Built with $500,000 of taxpayer subsidy in the hopes it would revitalize the community, Wal-Mart # 1775 would become one of 400 Wal-Mart stores to be shut after a market is saturated. UFCW Local 555 staff representative Jeff Anderson says Lebanon's downtown, true to predictions of small business opponents before Wal-Mart opened, now consists of second-hand stores and antique stores. The results of the election will be announced May 20. The new development is also being contested at the State Land Use Board of Appeals.