Brain
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This is the key to creating jobs – creating unions. Increasing the number of unions will help create a strong middle class not only in the United States but in the world. Unions can give people the purchasing power necessary to increase global demand stimulating the world economy thereby creating jobs. The magic of the multiplier effect will work its wonders.
Thankfully there still is a reason to have hope for the future if we can bring back the good old days when there were strong unions. I'm sure Thatcher and Reagan would be coughing their cookies if they could read this now. Wal-Mart has unions in China, wow, whoda thunk it.
Walmart Allows Its Workers To Unionize In Other Countries, Just Not In The United States | ThinkProgress
In Brazil, Argentina, China, the United Kingdom, and now South Africa, some Walmart employees are organized. In China, Walmart is required by law to recognize union membership, and in Mexico, 18 percent of its workers are organized. British labor leaders describe their dealings with Walmart as “honest,” and in Argentina, organized employees make as much as 40 percent more than employees at retailer’s major competitors. Walmart has a convenient response to why it lets workers organize in these countries, as the Washington Post reports: “We have a local philosophy,” Wal-Mart International Chief Executive Doug McMillon recently told reporters. “It’s our intention to demonstrate that we are a great corporate citizen.”
Apparently for Walmart, however, it matters not what workers want if those workers happen to be American. In 2008, Walmart spent millions more fighting the Employee Free Choice Act, lobbying against it in Washington and going so far as to summon “thousands of Wal-Mart sotre manages and department heads to mandatory meetings,” where it warned that voting for Barack Obama “would be tantamount to inviting unions in.”
Luckily for Walmart’s American employees, they have a useful ally in, of all places, South Africa. According to the Washington Post, the union that will represent Walmart workers in South Africa went to bat for the company’s American employees during its own negotiations. “You can’t say you violate the right to freedom of association because the culture in that country supports it,” Mduduzi Mbongwe, a South African union representative, said of Walmart’s approach to American unions. “We don’t accept such an argument.”
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/08/239411/walmart-unions-other-countries/
This is a similar article about Wal-Mart working with unions in other countries but not in the United States or Canada.
Wal-Mart works with unions abroad, but not at home
Retailing giant Wal-Mart faced an unusual request when it sought government approval recently to buy a chain of stores in South Africa. Labor groups there first asked for traditional protections, such as job security and a commitment from the new managers to buy merchandise from local suppliers. Then they called on Wal-Mart to end its long-running battle with unions thousands of miles away in the United States.
Union organizers are pushing for a unified approach to the retailer’s 2 million workers around the world. Labor leaders from disparate groups in Central America have begun talks, and unions in the United States, Argentina and Chile bolstered South African organizations during their negotiations. Last week, the international trade union coalition UNI sent a letter to Wal-Mart executives to discuss the possibility of a global agreement similar to those signed by competitors such as France’s Carrefour and retailers Ikea and H&M.
Wal-Mart has stores in 14 countries, and its expansion overseas is all the more important since it relies on international operations to fuel growth. While sales at home stagnated, its foreign stores raked in $100 billion in sales last year — a quarter of the company’s total revenue. That has forced the retailer to learn to play by a new set of rules. In South Africa, government officials approved Wal-Mart’s acquisition of retail conglomerate Massmart on the condition that it honor existing union contracts for three years and vow not to eliminate any jobs for two years. It also required the company to give preference to 500 workers who were recently fired from Massmart and establish a fund to buy from local suppliers.
But the government’s decision made no mention of Wal-Mart’s tension with U.S. unions and ignored labor’s request that the retailer drop its opposition to a bill that would make it easier for U.S. workers to organize. Still, labor organizations pointed to a strike in Chile this spring by 300 Wal-Mart employees to showcase the need for an international alliance. “We ain’t going anywhere,” said Michael Bride, deputy organizing director for global strategies at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which has been a vocal Wal-Mart critic. ”That’s something that the company’s going to have to grapple with again and again.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wal-mart-works-with-unions-abroad-but-not-at-home/2011/06/07/AG0nOPLH_story.html
Beth Hall/BLOOMBERG - Attendees from South Africa cheer during the Wal-Mart Stores annual shareholder meeting June 3 in Fayetteville, Ark.
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