Turn Off Ads?
Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 36

Thread: Episode IV: A New Hope

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Man Pills Falls City Beer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2000
    Location
    Philadelphia
    Posts
    31,207

    Episode IV: A New Hope

    A chink in the evil empire's armor.

    For Labor, a Wal-Mart Closing in Canada Is a Call to Arms
    By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

    Published: March 10, 2005



    Robert J. Galbraith for NYT
    The Wal-Mart in Jonquière, Quebec, will close this spring because of what the retailer said were escalating union demands and falling sales.

    ARTICLE TOOLS

    Printer Friendly Format Printer-Friendly Format
    Most E-mailed Articles Most E-Mailed Articles
    Reprints & Permissions Reprints & Permissions


    Most E-Mailed
    1.

    Mumbai to Midtown, Chaat Hits the Spot
    2.

    Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming
    3.

    Colicky Baby? Read This Before Calling an Exorcist
    4.

    Frank Rich: The Greatest Dirty Joke Ever Told
    5.

    Op-Ed Columnist: A Defense That's Offensively Weak
    Go to Complete List

    JONQUIÈRE, Quebec - Shoppers in this Quebec mill town are about to pay more for ice-fishing gear, snowmobile covers and cheese curds for poutine: the local Wal-Mart is closing this spring.

    But Wal-Mart's announcement in February that it could no longer do business here because of skimpy store revenue and escalating union demands is having a much broader impact across Canada and even south of the border. The closing - the first of a Wal-Mart in Canada - is a strategic retreat for the retailer in its war with organized labor.

    Since August 2004, when this store became the only unionized Wal-Mart in North America, Jonquière has become a rallying cry for retail union organizers who want to stop an erosion of membership in the grocery industry in both Canada and the United States.

    At least three other Wal-Mart outlets in Quebec have received bomb threats since the Jonquière closing announcement, forcing evacuations and losses in sales. Bernard Landry, the leader of the separatist Parti Québécois and a former premier of the province, has announced that he is boycotting the chain. A Quebec television broadcaster compared Wal-Mart to Nazism, but later apologized.

    In the last decade, Wal-Mart has become Canada's biggest retailer, shoving the T. Eaton Company out of that spot and contributing to its demise. But in contrast to their counterparts in the United States, unions in Canada have had traces of success in organizing. For the giant American chain, Jonquière has become another barricade in its battle to keep unions out of its business.

    "What we were left with was a store that was not going to be viable," Andrew Pelletier, director for corporate affairs at Wal-Mart Canada, said in an interview. "We felt the union wanted to fundamentally change the store's business model."

    Unionizing efforts at Wal-Marts in North America have virtually never stuck. A store in Windsor, Ontario, was unionized in 1997, but workers dissolved the union three years later when it failed to deliver a contract. A vote in 2000 to unionize meat cutters in Jacksonville, Tex., was followed by Wal-Mart's turning to prepackaged meat, eliminating the need for meat cutters.

    [On Tuesday, 74 percent of workers in Windsor voted against a new union, with both the organizers and Wal-Mart filing unfair labor practices complaints.]

    Union leaders say Wal-Mart is using Jonquière as an example to whip workers into line at a second Wal-Mart store outside Montreal that successfully organized in January and in more than 20 other outlets in at least three provinces where organizing efforts have begun.

    They also claim that the 17-to-1 vote against unionization at the Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express in Loveland, Colo., in late February was a sign of the chill sweeping down from Jonquière for workers who fear that organizing a union could mean the loss of their jobs.

    "What's at stake here," Michael J. Fraser, Canada national director of the United Food and Commercial Workers, said in an interview, "is whether or not Wal-Mart is going to be successful at attempting to prevent people from exercising their democratic right to form a union."

    Workers at various Wal-Marts around Quebec say they are being pressured by both management and labor. They describe a workplace atmosphere poisoned by rumor-mongering, insults and damage to personal property.

    Anti-union workers at the Ste. Foy store, which other workers are trying to organize, reported unwanted visits to their homes in the middle of the night by organizers during the unionization drive. Two pro-union cashiers at the Ste. Hyacinthe store outside Montreal reported that they recently had shortages in their registers, which they believe were the work of management trickery to get them into trouble.

    "This store is basically hell right now," said Noella Langlois, 53, a saleswoman in the Jonquière store who opposes unionization. "You have two deeply divided clans."

    Wal-Mart has been struggling to keep unions out of its Canadian stores since it bought more than 100 outlets from another retailer 11 years ago; it now has 256 Wal-Marts and 6 Sam's Club stores in Canada. A local of the United Food and Commercial Workers succeeded in gathering the signatures of a majority of Jonquière workers last summer.

    But the battleground in Quebec, where Wal-Mart has 47 stores, is not particularly favorable to the chain because provincial labor law is tilted in favor of unions. Forty percent of the province's work force is unionized, a rate 25 percent higher than the rest of Canada and more than three times the rate in the United States.

    Quebec's labor relations board recently ordered Wal-Mart Canada to stop "intimidating and harassing" cashiers at a store in Ste. Foy, a suburb of Quebec City, amid an organizing drive.

    Since the union's success in Jonquière, it has successfully organized a Wal-Mart outlet in Ste. Hyacinthe and collective bargaining is about to begin there. But a union meeting in February was poorly attended because, some workers contend, employees are afraid of losing their jobs.

    "The workers are nervous," said Veronique Falardeau, 23, a part-time cashier in the Ste. Hyacinthe store who says she wants a union to gain a more regular work schedule and benefits like insurance. "People are wondering if they closed Jonquière, they'll close our store, too."

    Wal-Mart filed a court challenge to the certification process for union cards at the Ste. Hyacinthe store in February, claiming it is undemocratic and open to union pressure tactics.

    Wal-Mart managers say a majority of their Canadian workers do not want unions, and they point to the fact that the 190 employees in Jonquière voted in a secret ballot in 2004 against the union. But under Quebec law, union organizers were able to unionize the store anyway by persuading a majority of employees to sign union cards.

    Once recognized, the union entered collective bargaining at the Jonquière store and demanded work schedule changes that management said would have forced the hiring of at least 30 more workers and were financially impossible.

    "After four collective bargaining meetings, it was clear we were not getting anywhere," said Mr. Pelletier, the Wal-Mart Canada senior manager. "The union is targeting us everywhere in virtually every part of the country. What it feels like and looks like is that they are transferring much of their effort from the United States to Canada."

    Mr. Fraser of the United Food and Commercial Workers said he still hoped a government arbitrator could bring the two sides together, and keep the store open. He argued that union card-signing campaigns were more democratic than secret votes because "when there is a vote Wal-Mart uses intimidation tactics."

    Intimidation appears to go both ways, according to workers at three Wal-Mart stores in Quebec.

    Sylvie Lavoie, a 40-year-old single mother and part-time cashier in the Jonquière store who says she needs a union, accused store managers of taking workers aside before the secret vote and warning them that a union would mean the store would close.

    Afterward the workers came to union organizers crying and pleading for promises that they would not lose their jobs.

    "They intimidate and do what they want," Ms. Lavoie said.

    But Steve Lemieux, a 20-year-old cart pusher in the Ste. Foy store, says it is the union that is the abuser. "People who are for the unions have trouble accepting other opinions and they keep knocking on our doors to get us to sign their cards," he said.

    "We don't need a union since there is easy advancement if you work for it."
    “And when finally they sense that some position cannot be sustained, they do not re-examine their ideas. Instead, they simply change the subject.” Jamie Galbraith

  2. #2
    Churlish Johnny Footstool's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Overland Park, KS
    Posts
    13,881

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    All the more reason to work hard in school and get an education so you don't have to rely on making a living at Wal-Mart.
    "I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful

  3. #3
    For a Level Playing Field
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Oakwood, OH
    Posts
    11,789

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Good point, Johnny, good point.

    I love to share with fellow RZ readers some of the background of the writers of some of these columns. Sometimes it sheds a bit of light and gives the reader a broader scope. Perhaps some writers have a slant? Hmmmmm.

    Some recent articles by the NY Times' Clifford Krauss...

    November 25 -- "A New Underground Railroad" for Gays to Canada?
    Clifford Krauss likens the trek of U.S. gays marrying in Canada to the Underground Railroad for escaping slaves: "Gay Couples Follow a Trail North Blazed by Slaves and War Resisters." A teaser embedded in another story on gay marriage makes the connection explicit: "A New Underground Railroad: Hundreds of Americans, fleeing state laws, are going to Canada to marry." The story opens with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.

    November 18 -- Syria's Torture, America's Shame
    Clifford Krauss tells the story of a Canadian arrested while changing planes at JFK and deported to his native Syria, where he was jailed and claims to have been tortured. Krauss shakes his head and blames...the United States.

    Wonder how long Clifford would stay alive if he wrote bad gov't press as a writer and citizen of... Syria, Iraq, North Korea, Iran or Somolia? Ironic... that he still lives and works in a country w/ such a terrible and oppressive government. Imagine that. :MandJ:

  4. #4
    Man Pills Falls City Beer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2000
    Location
    Philadelphia
    Posts
    31,207

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Quote Originally Posted by Johnny Footstool
    All the more reason to work hard in school and get an education so you don't have to rely on making a living at Wal-Mart.
    Oh, if it were just that simple.
    “And when finally they sense that some position cannot be sustained, they do not re-examine their ideas. Instead, they simply change the subject.” Jamie Galbraith

  5. #5
    Team Puffy Leadoff Hitter CbusRed's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Bexley OH
    Posts
    1,252

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Quote Originally Posted by Falls City Beer
    Oh, if it were just that simple.

    What isn't simple about it? I did it.

    Seemed pretty simple to me.

  6. #6
    Man Pills Falls City Beer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2000
    Location
    Philadelphia
    Posts
    31,207

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Quote Originally Posted by CbusRed
    What isn't simple about it? I did it.

    Seemed pretty simple to me.
    So did I. But the rails are greased for some (including me). I had two parents (both well-educated) who encouraged me like crazy not simply to get good grades but to pursue knowledge, be curious.

    Some parents have never seen the inside of their kids' schools, let alone pushed them to do their homework, stay on top of things. In fact, many parents see school as a troubling place because as students themselves, they only saw school as a place of punishment and reprimand, not cooperation. When I taught high school, only the "good" students' parents ever showed up on parent conference night. It's a vicious circle.
    “And when finally they sense that some position cannot be sustained, they do not re-examine their ideas. Instead, they simply change the subject.” Jamie Galbraith

  7. #7
    Team Puffy Leadoff Hitter CbusRed's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Bexley OH
    Posts
    1,252

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Quote Originally Posted by Falls City Beer
    So did I. But the rails are greased for some (including me). I had two parents (both well-educated) who encouraged me like crazy not simply to get good grades but to pursue knowledge, be curious.

    Some parents have never seen the inside of their kids' schools, let alone pushed them to do their homework, stay on top of things. In fact, many parents see school as a troubling place because as students themselves, they only saw school as a place of punishment and reprimand, not cooperation. When I taught high school, only the "good" students' parents ever showed up on parent conference night. It's a vicious circle.

    Very good points.

  8. #8
    Pitter Patter TRF's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Letterkenny
    Posts
    21,911

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Quote Originally Posted by Falls City Beer
    So did I. But the rails are greased for some (including me). I had two parents (both well-educated) who encouraged me like crazy not simply to get good grades but to pursue knowledge, be curious.

    Some parents have never seen the inside of their kids' schools, let alone pushed them to do their homework, stay on top of things. In fact, many parents see school as a troubling place because as students themselves, they only saw school as a place of punishment and reprimand, not cooperation. When I taught high school, only the "good" students' parents ever showed up on parent conference night. It's a vicious circle.
    Pheh.

    I grew up in Lower Price Hill. at least i spent 4 years there. I went to a different school every year of my life until 10th grade, spanning 4 states and 3,000 miles. My mom was more interested in drugs than her kids at various times, and to my knowledge never even met my teachers after 7th grade.

    Despite all that (and a ton more, half of which was my own stupid fault) I graduated HS and went on to college, without any help from my family.

    I work for a college as head of Web Services, and my 15 year old daughter is looking to go to Baylor when she graduates. She wants to be a surgeon.

    Stay in school. listen to your teachers. Focus on a future you can enjoy, and be prepared to inform your children better than your parents informed you, because the world is constantly changing.

    Most of all, learn to stand on your own early, because the future gets here pretty damn quick.
    Dubito Ergo Cogito Ergo Sum.

  9. #9
    Member
    Join Date
    May 2000
    Location
    Moscow, Russia
    Posts
    10,394

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    I'm not sure I'm following the logic here. I mean someone needs to work at Walmart, McDonalds, etc... Should those people be miserable? Are they bad people because they have bad jobs?

    And maybe some of you should be happy that not everyone gets an education and competes with you for a job. When that happens, you'll be force to think about a union so that you can pay the rent.

  10. #10
    Pitter Patter TRF's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Letterkenny
    Posts
    21,911

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Quote Originally Posted by Rojo
    I'm not sure I'm following the logic here. I mean someone needs to work at Walmart, McDonalds, etc... Should those people be miserable? Are they bad people because they have bad jobs?

    And maybe some of you should be happy that not everyone gets an education and competes with you for a job. When that happens, you'll be force to think about a union so that you can pay the rent.
    I'm competing with programmers from India that do my job at one third the price. I not only don't have a union, I don't want one.

    Because they can't stop the global workforce that's coming, and I don't want them to. That global workforce will be necessary for the next great step our civilization takes, in improving our lives and exploring the next frontiers.

    Even conservative people dream of the future.
    Dubito Ergo Cogito Ergo Sum.

  11. #11
    SERP Emeritus paintmered's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Cbus
    Posts
    7,256

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Quote Originally Posted by TRF
    I'm competing with programmers from India that do my job at one third the price. I not only don't have a union, I don't want one.

    Because they can't stop the global workforce that's coming, and I don't want them to. That global workforce will be necessary for the next great step our civilization takes, in improving our lives and exploring the next frontiers.

    Even conservative people dream of the future.

    Wow TRF. Most people in your situation would be considering a move to Bangalore.
    All models are wrong. Some of them are useful.

  12. #12
    Member
    Join Date
    May 2000
    Location
    Moscow, Russia
    Posts
    10,394

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    That global workforce will be necessary for the next great step our civilization takes, in improving our lives and exploring the next frontiers.
    Keep repeating it.

  13. #13
    I rig polls REDREAD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    ohio
    Posts
    29,254

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Quote Originally Posted by TRF
    . That global workforce will be necessary for the next great step our civilization takes, in improving our lives and exploring the next frontiers.
    The next frontier is greater downward pressure on American wages, if you like that.. It's already happening.

    Most of the earnings growth of American coorporations the past 4 years has been at the expense of labor. In short, the rich (CEOs) get richer while the middle class get poorer and have less opportunities.

    I hope it never happens you you TRF, but as soon as you lose a job to overseas outsourcing, I think you'll have a different perspective. It's happened to me twice.
    [Phil ] Castellini celebrated the team's farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds -- and then joke then they'd be ex-Reds, saying "of course we're going to lose them". #SellTheTeamBob

    Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!

  14. #14
    Churlish Johnny Footstool's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Overland Park, KS
    Posts
    13,881

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    I mean someone needs to work at Walmart, McDonalds, etc... Should those people be miserable? Are they bad people because they have bad jobs?
    True, someone needs to work minimum wage jobs, but unskilled labor is cheap and plentiful.

    I certainly don't think it's fair to force a company to pay more than the market demands for unskilled labor. If a worker is miserable, the burden is on him or her to improve the situation.
    "I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful

  15. #15
    Pitter Patter TRF's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Letterkenny
    Posts
    21,911

    Re: Episode IV: A New Hope

    Hey, just because i lean conservative, doesn't mean i 'm an isolationist. Truth is lot's of guys that do the job i do are getting outsourced overseas. I happen to be lucky i work for the state or it could happen to me. In fact a year ago, it nearly did. An education is no guarantee, but i've never heard of someone being worse off because of it. You rarely see someone with a Bachelor's or Masters Degree stocking at Wal-Mart. Unless they are 90 of course.
    Dubito Ergo Cogito Ergo Sum.


Turn Off Ads?

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Board Moderators may, at their discretion and judgment, delete and/or edit any messages that violate any of the following guidelines: 1. Explicit references to alleged illegal or unlawful acts. 2. Graphic sexual descriptions. 3. Racial or ethnic slurs. 4. Use of edgy language (including masked profanity). 5. Direct personal attacks, flames, fights, trolling, baiting, name-calling, general nuisance, excessive player criticism or anything along those lines. 6. Posting spam. 7. Each person may have only one user account. It is fine to be critical here - that's what this board is for. But let's not beat a subject or a player to death, please.

Thank you, and most importantly, enjoy yourselves!


RedsZone.com is a privately owned website and is not affiliated with the Cincinnati Reds or Major League Baseball


Contact us: Boss | Gallen5862 | Plus Plus | Powel Crosley | RedlegJake | The Operator