The original efforts of that particular store for example had the local labor Commission reject certification by a margin of 74 to 65. When the union announced that it won the coveted certification at Quebec, it was quite a blow to the retailer. The Quebec Labour Relations Commission issued the order certifying the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) as the bargaining agent of employees in Wal-Mart's store in Jonquiere. As noted, the reason a victory of this magnitude is huge is because of the policies and tactics used by Wal-Mart. The retailer works diligently to prevent its workforce from engaging in any collective action and they have consistently shown that they are willing to cross the line to guarantee their position.
Wal-Mart Canada's First Union
In January of 1994, the discount department store operator Wal-Mart headed north from its base in the United States in an effort to expand their network into the Canadian retail market. The new arm of the retailer was labeled as Wal-Mart Canada and fell under the management of Wal-Mart International. They quickly acquired one hundred twenty two of a possible one hundred forty four stores from another retailer, Woolco. At the time, Wal-Mart was already operating over twenty-five hundred stores globally but not a single one was unionized.
To bring Wal-Mart's position on the union issue home, the stores that Wal-Mart purchased or acquired were not unionized but nine of the remaining stores that were already unionized were passed over. Wal-Mart simply did not purchase any of the nine. "On April 14, 1996, the United Steelworkers began an organizing drive at the Wal-Mart store in Windsor, Ontario. When Andy Johnston, the store manager, became aware that employees were being approached to sign union cards, he immediately notified the "home office" in Toronto. It was decided that Tino Borean, the District Manager, would go to Windsor the next day." (Labour Law News, 1997) All employees of the Windsor Wal-Mart were ordered to be in to work early enough to attend a mandatory morning meeting in regard to the topic of unions.
In a related story, the Canadian labor laws were in transition at around the same time. "The statute that provides the collective bargaining framework for some 700,000 workers in the federally regulated private sector is slated for change. On November 4, 1996, the federal government introduced Bill C-66, an Act to Amend the Canada Labour Code. The amendments were developed following the release in February of a report entitled "Seeking a Balance," issued by a task force made up of Chair Andrew Sims and members Paula Knopf and Rodrigue Blouin." (Harnden, 2004)
Bill C-66 had a purpose of realigning the non-representational Canada Labour Relations Board with a new Canada Industrial Relations Board. The industrial board was composed of a neutral Chair and Vice-Chairs, as well as an equal number of members who were to represent both employers and employees. The new process was intended to streamline administrative tasks and processes.
Back at Wal-Mart, over the course of the next few days after that original meeting, the management team that was present in the store seemed to grow as higher ranking executives began appearing and the number of meetings increased proportionately. Meetings were repeatedly held by management for employees which included one-on-one meetings, team meetings and even after hour calls to the homes of the employees. The message was overly clear -- Wal-Mart did not want a union in their new northern backyard.
The obvious questions that arose at the time were related to Wal-Mart's employee policies and management's refusal to answer employees' questions regarding job security while the store's employees were in the process of considering the union drive as well as the efforts of the management team to do whatever was necessary to stop the organizational efforts of the United Steel Workers. Wal-Mart's managers were literally circulating around the stores to privately discuss the union's efforts with employees and even sat in meetings that were clearly efforts for the union to gather support. Of course, existing Canadian Labor Laws did not permit such blatant efforts to keep an employee from attending or conversing about a unionization meeting while with management present.
The Ontario Labour Relations Board concurred when the matter was brought to their attention via an application presented by the United Steel Workers. The Board used the decision from Lorraine Products Canada Limited, [1977] OLRB Rep. Nov. 734. "The Board's ruling is in keeping with a long line of cases in which the Board has affirmed that it will not tolerate subtle threats to job security made by employers to thwart a union drive. As in the K-Mart decision, the...
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