The New York Times

December 11, 2004

Unions Plan Big Drive for Better Pay at Nonunion Wal-Mart

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and more than a half dozen unions are planning an unusual - and unusually expensive - campaign intended to pressure Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, to improve its wages and benefits.

The campaign will be highly unusual because it will not, at least at first, focus on unionizing Wal-Mart workers, but will instead focus on telling Americans that Wal-Mart - with wages averaging between $9 and $10 an hour - is pulling down wages and benefits at companies across the nation.

The unions are talking of spending $25 million a year on the effort, more than has ever been spent before in a union campaign against a single company.

"This isn't a campaign, this is a movement," said Greg Denier, spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. "There's no precedent for this. It's a movement to confront the reality of Wal-Mart-ization. No other company has ever had the global economic impact that Wal-Mart has."

Wal-Mart has 1.2 million workers in the United States, more than any other company, but no unionized workers. It has a history of fiercely resisting unionization efforts.

Wal-Mart executives say that its wages are competitive with those of other retailers. But critics assert that now that it has become the nation's largest company, Wal-Mart, like General Motors of old, has a responsibility to be a model on wages and benefits.

Christi Davis Gallagher, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, warned that higher wages could lead to higher prices.

"It appears the unions want to take millions of dollars in dues from their members and use them to rob average Americans of their right to pay less for the basics in life," Ms. Gallagher said. "You need to ask one question: Is it fair to ask American consumers to pay higher prices to subsidize a relatively small pocket of individuals just because they are making the most noise?"

The new effort, to be announced officially in several months, will also be unusual because most union campaigns involve just one union. Because Wal-Mart is so huge, labor leaders have concluded that several unions should work with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. on the effort.

Among those participating are the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Many union leaders have criticized the food and commercial workers for doing too little over the past decade to unionize Wal-Mart, but the union's new president, Joseph Hansen, has vowed to do more.

Andrew L. Stern, the service employees' president, said: "Wal-Mart is much too big for any one union to tackle. The Wal-Mart-ing of the economy is a threat to every union."

Last winter, California's three largest supermarket chains waged a 20-week labor battle, involving a strike and lockout, in which they urged the food and commercial workers union to make major concessions on wages and benefits to help the companies compete with Wal-Mart. The supermarkets emerged victorious, getting the union to agree to a lower wage and benefit scale for new hires.

The unions plan to work with community groups fighting the construction of Wal-Mart stores and are contemplating lawsuits accusing the company of forcing employees to work unpaid hours off the clock. The unions are also planning a publicity campaign in which union members distribute fliers and hold protests at hundreds of the nation's 3,600 Wal-Mart stores.

The unions also plan an intense effort in several regions where they might set up committees of current and former Wal-Mart workers to publicize what they consider inferior wages and health benefits. These committees might also serve as the base for future unionization efforts.

While attending a labor conference in Japan on Monday, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, John J. Sweeney, met with union leaders from several countries that have Wal-Mart stores, including Mexico and Brazil, to strategize on how to pressure Wal-Mart. Mr. Sweeney said the unions would urge Wal-Mart to stop pressing suppliers to cut costs so low that the suppliers' workers receive low wages.

"We're also concerned about the 20,000 workers at Wal-Mart stores in China and about the 6 million Chinese workers who produce goods sold at Wal-Marts," he said.

Mr. Stern of the service employees' union has proposed financing the campaign by using the $25 million the A.F.L.-C.I.O. receives yearly from its Union Plus credit card.

Mr. Sweeney said, "I'm not sure if $25 million is enough."

Ms. Gallagher of Wal-Mart said, "One thing that the unions seem to miss is that Wal-Mart's ability to offer the lowest prices around is driven by a passion to drive costs out of our business at all levels," including information technology.

She added, "While the unions want people to believe that we drive down our costs primarily through our wages or benefits, that is simply not the case."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company