[Vision2020] Wal-Mart Black Friday Walkouts Can Go On, for Now

[Art Deco]

This is an important issue.  What is really at stake is an attempt to
reverse the downward income spiral of many American workers.  While unions
are not perfect, and some are downright obstructive, union action may be
one of the weapons the middle class needs to use to regain their earning
power and hence their purchasing power.

w.

On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 12:00 AM, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com> wrote:

>
> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-20/wal-mart-black-friday-walkouts-can-go-on-for-now
>
> By Elizabeth Dwoskin<http://www.businessweek.com/authors/2889-elizabeth-dwoskin>on November 20, 2012
>
> It looks like a spate of walkouts<http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-16/wal-mart-workers-black-friday-strike>Wal-Mart workers have planned for Black Friday will go on. The Bentonville
> (Ark.)-based company had accused the workers of illegal picketing last
> Friday, making a rare complaint<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/business/labor-board-to-act-swiftly-on-wal-marts-complaint.html>to the National Labor Relations Board. The company asked the board to issue
> an injunction to stop the strikes in their tracks. While the NLRB usually
> takes months to issue a decision, officials said they made this case a high
> priority.
>
> The NLRB weighed in on Tuesday afternoon, with a statement that isn’t
> going to make either party particularly pleased. Citing the complexity of
> the case at hand, the NLRB decided to put off a decision until after
> Thanksgiving. “The legal issues—including questions about what constitutes
> picketing and whether the activity was aimed at gaining recognition for the
> union—are complex,” NLRB spokeswoman Nancy Cleeland said in a statement.
> “The Memphis Office expects to complete its investigation tomorrow
> (Wednesday). Because of the complexity of the case, it will then be sent to
> the NLRB Division of Advice in Washington, D.C., for further analysis.
> Under these circumstances, the Office of General Counsel does not expect to
> make a decision before Thursday on whether or not to seek an injunction to
> stop the activity.”
>
> Forty-two Wal-Mart (WMT<http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=WMT>
> ) workers protesting low wages and high costs of health insurance walked
> out earlier this month in Southern California and Seattle, according to a
> union-backed coalition of Wal-Mart workers that goes by the name OUR
> Walmart. The NLRB’s nondecision in effect allows the strikes to continue at
> least until Friday morning. But it doesn’t give the workers sure footing
> going forward. And so, minutes after the NLRB issued its nondecision, OUR
> Walmart filed a counter charge with the NRLB. The workers, who are backed
> by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, alleged that Wal-Mart
> management threatened workers to attempt to deter them from the strike.
>
> Wal-Mart had alleged to the NLRB that the Black Friday walkouts were a
> pretense for a longer campaign by the United Food and Commercial Workers to
> unionize the Wal-Mart employees. Under the National Labor Relations Act, a
> union seeking recognition can picket for a maximum of 30 days. After that,
> it must end the picketing and take a formal unionization vote. The company
> says protests have gone over the 30-day limit.
>
> Angela B. Cornell, director of the Labor Law Clinic at Cornell Law School,
> says those claims will be extremely hard for Wal-Mart to prove. For one,
> workers are allowed to walk off the job. Also, the workers have taken pains
> to demonstrate that the motives for the walkouts are related to working
> conditions, not to union organizing. Some workers have alleged that
> Wal-Mart managers retaliated against them when they complained about
> working conditions. Pickets have taken place across the country, and the
> motives for them appear to be somewhat different across stores.
>
> But the connection between OUR Walmart and the UFCW is still murky,
> Cornell says. If Wal-Mart can show that the UFCW is pulling all the
> strings, and can prove the goal of the picketing that began in October was
> to unionize, they just might have a case. “If Wal-Mart can show that OUR
> Walmart is the alter ego of the UFCW, they’ve moved their case forward,”
> Cornell says. “But I don’t think it would get them that far.”
>  Dwoskin <edwoskin at bloomberg.net> is a staff writer for Bloomberg
> Businessweek in Washington.
>
>
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-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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