Prominent labor groups are seeking an investigation into whether Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. violated federal election laws by telling employees that
electing Democrats would lead to passage of legislation making it easier to
unionize companies.
In a letter to be delivered as early as Thursday, the labor groups are
asking the Federal Election Commission to determine whether the company "made
prohibited corporate expenditures" by organizing meetings across the country to
warn employees that a Democratic president would back legislation known as the
Employee Free Choice Act, which the company opposes. The groups say such
statements amount to advocating the defeat of Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive
Democratic nominee, in the November election.
Companies aren't permitted under federal election law to expressly advocate
to hourly employees the election or defeat of specific candidates. The complaint
cites as its source an Aug. 1 front-page article in The Wall Street Journal that
reported the Bentonville, Ark., retailer held meetings with thousands of store
managers and department supervisors across the country to discuss the
legislation.
What exactly has Wal-mart been saying? Let's go to the videotape...
Meanwhile, new details are emerging that show Wal-Mart managers leading the
meetings are spreading inaccurate information about the Employee Free Choice
Act, according to a digital recording of a Wal-Mart meeting made by a Wal-Mart
employee and reviewed by the Journal.
In the hour-and-a-half meeting, held
for managers in a Southern state, the leader tells employees that their wages
may be reduced to minimum wage for up to three months before a contract is
negotiated, that union authorization cards violate workers' right to privacy by
including their Social Security numbers on them and that if a small unit within
a store votes to unionize, the entire store will be unionized.
"If you have 10 associates in a photo lab and six sign union
authorization cars, now the store is unionized," the meeting leader told
employees. "Six people can make a decision for 350 people," which is about the
average number of workers in a Walmart supercenter.
Labor lawyers say these are inaccurate interpretations of labor law in
general and the Employee Free Choice Act specifically, and that could be a
violation of labor law. "The statements are not correct representations of what
the law would require even under the current law," said Jeffrey Hirsch, a labor
lawyer in Boston. "It would be a violation of the national labor relations act
to say those things."
This is brazen and flagrant law-breaking on the part of Wal-Mart. Unfortunately the chances that they will face timely and appropriate punishment are quite slim, at least in terms of the labor law violations.
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