5 stores' closings: 1 battle in a war?

Unions on quest for retail workers

Claims that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shut down five stores across the country to squash labor protests have been disputed by the retailer.

Locations from California to Florida were closed for what Wal-Mart has referred to as plumbing problems. The company maintains that renovations -- not retaliation -- are the driving force behind closures that could potentially leave 2,200 without jobs.

That the accusation would be levied speaks not just to a specific situation with Wal-Mart and its workers, but to a larger tension that exists between companies and service industry workers. Employees working in retail, fast-food and similar industries are largely nonunionized and one of the last frontiers for the labor movement in the United States.

"This isn't just about these workers," said Phil Dine, a union expert and author. "This is about the service sector. There is a lot at stake here. That's one reason these fights can be waged so viciously on both sides."

Union membership was at its height in the 1950s when about a third of the workforce in the United States was organized. Private sector workers were 37 percent unionized and the public sector -- government jobs -- were about 8 percent.

Those numbers essentially are reversed today. Government employees are much more likely to be unionized and once strong sectors like manufacturing and construction have seen sharp declines in membership over the past 60 years.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the union rate for full-time workers is 12.3 percent nationally. Those numbers are in the low-single digits for areas such as retail and fast food.

Union membership among wholesale and retail trade was at 4.2 percent in 2014. It was 3.2 percent among leisure and hospitality workers.

Efforts to organize workers in largely low-wage jobs are growing nationally. Better scheduling and pay increases often are the focal point of protests by retail and fast-food workers.

Wal-Mart announced in February it was investing $1 billion in wage, scheduling and training upgrades for employees. The move came after years of protests by groups organized and funded largely by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

A complaint was filed last week with the National Labor Relations board on behalf of OUR Wal-Mart and the 2,200 workers potentially out of jobs. Wal-Mart has said employees are eligible for 60 days' pay and have the potential to transfer or secure severance pay. The groups are asking the labor board for reinstatement of employees to their former stores or transfer to other locations without loss of pay until repairs are complete. Repairs, the company said, could take six months.

"Walmart has targeted this store because the Associates have been among the most active Associates around the country to improve working conditions," according to the complaint filed by attorney David Rosenfeld.

Even with wage increases given by Wal-Mart, groups such as OUR Wal-Mart continue to ask for more. They're calling for a $15 per hour minimum wage and while Wal-Mart and other major employers in retail have stopped short of that, they are beginning to make additional investment in employee salaries.

Venanzi Luna, who has worked the past eight years at Wal-Mart and has been heavily involved in attempts to rally and organize workers, believes that the protests are the reason for the pay increases. She also is among those convinced that the closures are a push back because of the protests, which began in 2012 at a super center in Pico Rivera, Calif., one of the stores affected by the closings announced last week.

That location has been a hotbed for protest activity and served as a model while groups such as OUR Walmart work to build more support across the country. The Tulsa location included in the plumbing-related closures was the site of Black Friday protests in past years.

"We were the ones that pushed the buttons to get the wage increases," Luna said. "We are the ones who pushed for changes to policies on sick hours and pay. We were the ones that changed scheduling and for them to post if there were openings. ... Wal-Mart will never say it, but it's OK. As long as we know it was us."

Similar protests have sprung up across the country, including fast food worker strikes in Little Rock. TJ Maxx and Target are among the major retailers that have announced pay increases for workers. McDonald's followed suit.

Adam Cobb, assistant professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, said the wage increases aren't clear-cut proof that the protests are working. Both sides are able to claim victory.

"You have OUR Wal-Mart and left-leaning people saying this is what happens when you pressure companies. Then you have retailers saying they don't need a minimum wage, this is the market at work," Cobb said. "Both sides have been magically taking credit. Is this the market at its best? Is this what happens when you push firms to do the right things? This will be an interesting phenomenon to keep watching."

For all the increased attention the protests are generating, there are no guarantees that growing the ranks of unionized employees here will be successful. Unionizing is a difficult proposition in service industry jobs for a number of reasons.

Dine points to small numbers of workers in specific locations, high turnover among workers and employees who are largely uninformed or uneducated of their rights as challenges for those seeking to unionize the service sector -- retail and fast food in particular.

When butchers joined a union in Texas in 2000, Wal-Mart closed 180 meat departments nationwide. Store closures have come in Canada after employees unionized. Nearly 10 years after workers in Quebec became the first unionized Wal-Mart store in North America, the Canadian Supreme Court found the retailer in violation of rights.

Dine said more than 10,000 workers annually are given back pay and reinstated by the National Labor Relations Board after being fired improperly for trying to form a union. Cases can take years to be heard and fully ruled on by the labor board.

"Violators are basically told to post the law on their store. They have to give workers back pay and promise not to do it again," said Dine, author of State of the Unions. "It's not unlike robbing a bank and giving the money back and promising to never do it again. It can take years for the NLRB to hear and rule on cases. In the interim, the message is sent to a workforce, telling them 'Be careful, guys.'"

SundayMonday Business on 04/27/2015

Upcoming Events