Union Sets Up Web Petition
Document Protests Closing Of Canada Store
Last updated Friday, February 11, 2005 10:18 PM CST in Business
By Anita French
The Morning News
The United Food and Commercial Workers union in Washington has started a petition drive at its Web site protesting the closing of a Wal-Mart store in Canada that was trying to unionize.
The petition is directed to Wal-Mart President and CEO Lee Scott. UFCW spokesman Greg Denier said thousands of complaints have already been sent to Scott since the petition was set up Thursday.
"We had thousands of responses within the first few hours," Denier said. "People are sending them directly to Wal-Mart (in Bentonville). You can expect hundreds of thousands of comments going through to Wal-Mart."
Spokesmen with Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville referred media calls to Wal-Mart Canada, which did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Wal-Mart said this week it planned to close its store in Jonquiere, Quebec, after employees there voted to form a union. Wal-Mart said demands from negotiators would have forced an already unprofitable store to hire 30 more people and abide by "inefficient" work rules.
"You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules that cause you to even be in worse shape," Scott told The Washington Post.
Denier called closing the Canada store a "reprehensible act" and said Wal-Mart was being deceptive.
"No one was forcing them to hire 30 people. If during the course of negotiations, they can't reach an agreement, there is an impartial process to help them do that," Denier said. "What Wal-Mart fears is an impartial process. Those workers in Quebec have an absolute right to have a union; that's the law. Instead of obeying the law, (Wal-Mart) decided to close the store and take away the livelihood from those 200 families -- and that's the (petition) message being sent to Wal-Mart."
The petition, addressed to "Mr. Scott," calls upon Wal-Mart to "live up to the responsibilities that come with being the world's largest corporation. Those responsibilities begin with respecting workers, consumers and communities.
"Wal-Mart spent hundreds of millions last month in an advertising campaign that asked people to find out the facts about your company. The fact that you would eliminate jobs and displace an entire community because you want to deny workers their right to negotiate for a fair wage is the only fact I need to know.
"Do the right thing. Reverse plans to close your store. Negotiate in good faith with Wal-Mart workers," the petition says.
Workers at the Jonquiere store had been in negotiations with Wal-Mart the last several months, attempting to reach an agreement on wages and benefits. The company closed the store after the workers appealed to the Quebec Labor Ministry to initiate a process that would establish a wage and benefit settlement.
"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," said Michael J. Fraser, the UFCW's national director in Canada.
Denier said the UFCW in Canada plans to file charges against Wal-Mart with the Quebec Labor Relations Commission.
"They will continue the organizing effort in Canada, and we will continue in the United States to warn the public about Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is running scared. They're willing to cut off their own profits in order (to stop unionization)," Denier said.
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said in a news release Friday Wal-Mart closing the Canada store was "another chilling example of why New Yorkers should want to keep this low-road retailer out of the city."
Wal-Mart said earlier this year that it plans to open a store in Queens, N.Y. So far, the company has not revealed any plans to open a store in New York City.
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