if Romney becomes president, it will definitely benefit Walmart (see
excerpt below)
Excerpt: Legal experts said the confidential memo shows an
unprecedented level of caution from a company that has taken harsh
stances towards employee attempts to organize in the past.
“Walmart probably has in mind that the Obama NLRB [National Labor
Relations Board] often sides with unions over management,” said Lance
Compa, a labor law professor at Cornell University’s School of
Industrial Relations in Ithaca, N.Y. “So they’re being extremely
cautious.”
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/13/walmart-strike-memo_n_1962039.html
Christina Wilkie
christin...@huffingtonpost.com
Alice Hines
alice...@huffingtonpost.com
Walmart Strike Memo Reveals Confidential Management Plans
Posted: 10/13/2012 2:18 pm EDT Updated: 10/13/2012 2:49 pm EDT
Walmart launched a large-scale response this week to a series of
unprecedented labor strikes, according to a confidential document
obtained by The Huffington Post.
The seven-page internal memo, issued Oct. 8, is intended for salaried
employees only, and contains instructions on how to respond to strikes
by hourly workers that spread to 28 Walmart stores in 12 cities
earlier this week. The strikes were the first by Walmart retail
employees in the company’s 50-year history.
The memo makes clear that Walmart, the world's largest private
employer, views the labor protests as a serious attack, a message that
runs contrary to the company's public comments that the strikes are
mere "publicity stunts," as Walmart's vice president of communications
David Tovar told The Huffington Post Tuesday.
"As you know,” the memo opens, “activists or union organizers have
been trying for years to stop our Company’s growth and to damage our
relationship with our customers and members. One of the activists’ or
union organizers’ tactics is to try to disrupt the business by urging
our associates to participate in a walkout or other form of work
stoppage.”
The majority of the memo is aimed at instructing managers not to
violate workers' legal right to engage in concerted activity, or
non-union labor organizing. Managers are directed not to “discipline”
employees who engage in walkouts, sit-ins or sick-outs.
Legal experts said the confidential memo shows an unprecedented level
of caution from a company that has taken harsh stances towards
employee attempts to organize in the past.
“Walmart probably has in mind that the Obama NLRB [National Labor
Relations Board] often sides with unions over management,” said Lance
Compa, a labor law professor at Cornell University’s School of
Industrial Relations in Ithaca, N.Y. “So they’re being extremely
cautious.”
The memo is peppered with Walmart management jargon, offering a window
into the secretive corporate culture built by founder Sam Walton.
Managers are reminded over and over of the acronym TIPS (Threaten
Intimidate Promise Spy) when dealing with potential labor organizing
by hourly-wage "associates." The widely used human resources term
serves to remind managers that they cannot, by law, threaten or
intimidate workers who organize, promise them benefits if they stop
organizing, or spy on their activities.
What managers can legally do, however, is what Walmart calls FOE --
offer workers Facts, Opinions, and Personal Experiences about labor
organizing. Walmart offers a sample opinion that says, "I don't think
a walkout is a good way to resolve problems or issues." According to
Compa, this is a boilerplate tactic for companies looking to
discourage unionizing without breaking the law.
The historic retail worker strikes began last Friday in Los Angeles,
when 60-some people walked off work, and they quickly spread across
the country. Earlier in September, workers at warehouses owned by
Walmart in Illinois and California also went on strike.
Striking workers are demanding that Walmart end retaliatory practices
against employees who attempt to organize by Nov. 23, Black Friday. If
not, they will strike again on the biggest shopping day of the year,
according to Colby Harris, a Walmart worker from Dallas, who
participated in Tuesday’s strike.
Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman said the strikes were largely publicity
stunts. "We've seen the unions hold these made for TV events outside
our stores for about ten years now," he told HuffPost, "and they want
the publicity to help further their political and financial agendas.
There is a very small number of associates raising these concerns, and
they don't represent the views of the vast majority of our 1.3 million
associates."
According to Compa, the memo reflects Walmart's concern over the
20-some charges of unfair labor practices that Walmart workers filed
with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over the past 8 weeks
in concurrence with the strikes.
The charges include dozens of allegations from employees who claim
they were subjected to harassment, cut hours and other disciplinary
actions when Walmart higher-ups learned that they supported OUR
Walmart, the United Food and Commercial Workers-backed worker group
that organized the recent strikes. If the NLRB sides with the workers,
Walmart may eventually be forced to pay a huge settlement in back pay,
the specific amount of which would vary for each individual case.
Fogleman said the company has "very strict policies against
retaliation. If an associate feels that they have been retaliated
against, we want to know that. That allows us the opportunity to look
into it and take appropriate action."
Politics may also play a role in the company's newfound caution. Top
positions at the NLRB are appointed by the president, and Democrats
have traditionally been more sympathetic to labor organizers.
Notably, the leaked memo lacks many of Walmart’s famously tough labor policies.
In the past, internal Walmart documents instructed managers to remind
employees that they could be permanently replaced if they went on
strike, as well as provided talking points on the false guarantees
unions make to workers, according to a 2007 report by Human Rights
Watch that examined 292 NLRB charges against Walmart. The new document
bears no mention of replacing employees.
At one point, Walmart is even more cautious than the law requires. The
document does not instruct managers to evict employees conducting a
sit-in on company property, as is within their legal right, according
to Compa, who also serves as a consultant to Human Rights Watch.
Still, a few of the strategies that made Walmart famous as a
union-buster rear their heads in the document. Tacked onto the end of
the memo is a definition of the term, “Coaching By Walking Around”
(CBWA), or “when managers walk through their facility or department
everyday just to visit with associates,” as Walmart explains it. While
it may sound benign, the verb "to coach" in Walmart lexicon also means
to discipline employees. According to workers interviewed by Human
Rights Watch, Walmart managers have used CBWA as a surveillance tactic
to monitor and deter labor organizers.
Fogleman, the Walmart spokesman, defended the CWBA, saying that
management uses it as a tool to "remain engaged with everyone working
for them and with environment. It helps foster the channels of open
dialogue that set us apart as an employer."
It remains to be seen whether the new directives will have a long-term
impact on Walmart managers. "I think it's one thing to get a piece of
paper, but in practice that's not what people have experienced in
these stores," said Sarita Gupta, executive director of Jobs with
Justice, a nonprofit workers rights group. Gupta cautions that one
document is unlikely to alter five decades of anti-union corporate
culture. “What I worry about is that our experience with Walmart
management is they say they'll respect workers, and then their actions
tell a different story."
Walmart also could have ulterior motives for considering workers
rights, such as covering itself in upcoming Unfair Labor Practice
proceedings. “Walmart could say, in effect, 'Look, it says right here,
we told our supervisors ‘don’t retaliate’ –- so we must be innocent,”
said Compa, the law professor. Compa noted that this is a possible
motivation for Walmart to have put such “extremely circumspect”
manager instructions down on paper at a time like this.
For Dan Schlademan, director of the UFCW’s Making Change at Walmart
campaign, the motives of the memo are less important than its overall
effect on workers. "I've been doing this work for 20 years, and I've
never seen a document like this.”
"What's important about this piece of paper is that it solidifies what
people saw for the first time during the strikes, which is that
Walmart employees were able to walk out in protest, and the next day
were able to return to work. For many of them, that was amazing to
see."