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VII. Case Study I: Defeating Union Organizing Through Tactics Comporting with US Law

Union activity began at a Greeley, Colorado, Wal-Mart in the spring of 2005.  When Human Rights Watch visited Greeley in July 2005, the organizing drive was still underway.  Current and former workers described in detail how their store managers and Wal-Mart’s Labor Relations Team were systematically implementing the company’s strategy to thwart the organizing efforts at the store.  No unfair labor practice charges were filed, however, and it appears unlikely that Wal-Mart’s conduct ran afoul of US law.  Instead, this case is one of many examples of how Wal-Mart violates workers’ internationally recognized right to freedom of association by taking advantage of weak US labor laws and the inherently coercive power of the employment relationship to mount anti-union campaigns that deny workers the right to choose freely whether to organize. 

As in other cases, Wal-Mart accomplished its goal primarily by inundating workers with anti-union information, highlighting the possible downsides to organizing and clearly articulating the company’s opposition to unions, while limiting workers’ access to contrary views.  Workers, for the most part, heard only Wal-Mart’s side of the story and with little if any information to contradict their employer’s dire warnings about unions, many reportedly grew to fear the detrimental effects of union formation.  Through the anti-union mantra of its store managers and Labor Relations Team members and lack of opportunity to air pro-union views, Wal-Mart created an atmosphere in which a free and fair union campaign was impossible.

By reminding workers repeatedly of its opposition to unions, Wal-Mart also helped create a climate in which workers began to fear potential repercussions for organizing against their employer’s wishes.  The company never made any explicit threats of retaliation, but it did not have to—Wal-Mart’s hostility towards union formation was perfectly clear, and workers feared that if they supported self-organizing, they would be crossing their powerful employer at their own peril.  As one Greeley, Colorado, Wal-Mart worker told Human Rights Watch:

There is a lot of fear among the associates. . . .  [They] fear they will lose their jobs.  It’s not said.  No one comes out and says if you vote union, you’re going to be fired, but that’s the fear everyone has.  And people say, “It might not be a lot of money, but I need my job.”  There’s a single mom who was approached about the union.  She said, “I won’t back you because I don’t want to lose my job.” . . .  I think we could unionize the store if we could get people less fearful.  If people could actually hear the benefits, we’d have a good chance. . . .  People are fearful because they need their jobs.  They know they’re going to retaliate.⁴²⁷

In this case, as in others, the company’s strategy to derail worker organizing achieved its goal: the organizing efforts diminished and ultimately “completely stalled.”⁴²⁸

Greeley, Colorado, Store Number 5051

I was angry.  It’s such an impossible battle. . . .  They have the power and influence on their side. . . .  I think at least half of the associates would vote in a union if they weren’t coerced.

—Jared West, Greeley, Colorado, Wal-Mart worker and member of the organizing committee.⁴²⁹

In February 2005, Greeley, Colorado, Wal-Mart garden center worker Jared West contacted the UFCW to inquire about organizing workers at the store.  West and his fellow union supporters explained to Human Rights Watch that they wanted to organize because of seemingly random and unfair raises, a new pay scale that they perceived as hurting long-term workers, a recently imposed cap on merit raises per store, management failure to follow company rules on granting promotions, and lack of management accountability.⁴³⁰  Electronics worker and organizing committee member Casey Minor summed up the workers’ sentiments, telling Human Rights Watch, “I just don’t think what Wal-Mart does is right with its employees.  For a company that makes as much as they do, they don’t treat employees as well as they could.”⁴³¹

The Anti-Union Campaign and Store Management

Wal-Mart workers in Greeley told Human Rights Watch that they believe that store management detected their union activity before the UFCW sent official notification in June 2005 that an organizing committee had formed at the store.⁴³²  They described to Human Rights Watch changes that they observed in management behavior that they attributed to suspicion that organizing was underway, including the increased management presence in the store’s garden department, where most of the union supporters worked.

The store manager, co-managers, and the assistant manager reportedly came out to the garden department to help “after rumors of the union started” and before store management received the UFCW letter.⁴³³  Angela Steinbrecher, a garden department worker and union organizing committee member, recalled that the store manager “put on a vest and helped with the fork truck.”⁴³⁴  Christine Stroup, another Greeley, Colorado, Wal-Mart worker and organizing committee member added, “That was the first time I saw him doing physical labor, throwing freight.  He’d [only] walked around before.”⁴³⁵  West, Steinbrecher, and Stroup recounted that, after helping out, the store manager told garden department workers that if they had a union, he would not be able to “pitch in” anymore because, as West and Stroup recalled, it would not be in his job description.⁴³⁶  West told Human Rights Watch, “Pretty much until the small meetings started, he was out there about every day for at least a couple of hours, just helping out.  Most of us on the [union] list are in electronics and garden.”⁴³⁷ 

On June 10, 2005, the UFCW sent the Greeley, Colorado, store managers a letter that formally announced workers’ intent to campaign for a union and listed the fifteen workers on the organizing committee.⁴³⁸  According to West, the reaction of the store managers was dramatic: “When the organizing letter first came out, they allowed department managers to cry, literally, at store meetings about how much they hate unions.”⁴³⁹  Steinbrecher described to Human Rights Watch a store-wide meeting held very shortly after management received the organizing letter:

Rick [the store manager] said he got a letter from UFCW and read the letter.  He said, “So, it has been brought to my attention that some associates feel they want to bring in a union.”  Some of the associates went bonkers.  One guy in particular . . . said, “I’m so disappointed.  I can’t believe that anyone would want to work for a union.  I worked for them for twenty years at the post office, and they did nothing for me, but I had to pay my dues.”  Rick said, “I know, John.  I know how you feel—my exact sentiments.”  John said, “I’m not here because I have to be here.  I’m here because I want to be here.  Wal-Mart is a wonderful place to work.”  John is the department manager of hardware.  He has a lot of pull at Wal-Mart.  Usually anyone who works under him advances very fast. . . .  Another associate spoke up and said her family had really struggled because her dad had been working for a union.  He had to pay the union.  She would never work for one and pay dues.  “I can barely make it on what I’m making now.  If I had to pay dues, I’d never make it.”⁴⁴⁰

Management also reportedly emphasized Wal-Mart’s Open Door Policy in the days and weeks that followed the UFCW letter, suggesting that with a union, workers could lose the benefits of the Open Door.  Steve Stockburger, a worker in the garden center and another member of the organizing committee, told Human Rights Watch:

After the letter, every manager, whoever was speaking at classes and big store meetings, [said you] can always go into the Open Door Policy and talk to a manager, and if you can’t get something done with one level of manager, you can go up higher, even above store manager. . . .  They said you have it good now because you have the Open Door and comments box, but you really won’t have a voice with a union because they’ll speak for you.⁴⁴¹ 

Steinbecher concurred, noting:

He [the store manager] keeps saying, . . .  “I don’t know why people would want a union.  Why would you want to pay for representation when we have the Open Door Policy? . . .  Why do you want to pay someone to speak for you when we have the Open Door Policy and you can speak for yourself free of charge?”⁴⁴²

Wal-Mart management also reportedly highlighted the uncertainty inherent in a union-led collective bargaining process.⁴⁴³  “Bridgid Carpenter,” speaking to Human Rights Watch on condition of anonymity, explained, “They said we have so many benefits, discount cards, hotline, [and] if the union came in, we could either keep that or it could be taken away.”⁴⁴⁴  “Carpenter,” who said that although she signed a union card, she is now “neutral on the union,” added that Wal-Mart managers told them that during negotiations, “nothing is guaranteed.  We could make more; we could make less; or just stay the same.  But the one thing that’s guaranteed is dues.”⁴⁴⁵

Store managers also began to mingle more with workers throughout the store after the company received the UFCW letter, according to several workers who spoke to Human Rights Watch.⁴⁴⁶  Stroup noted, “The management team suddenly seemed to interact with the associates and was walking the floor constantly.”⁴⁴⁷ 

Although several union supporters told Human Rights Watch that their increased interactions with managers were unusually friendly and personable,⁴⁴⁸ Stroup described to Human Rights Watch a particularly hostile reaction that she received from her department manager in the layaway department in response to her involvement in union activity.  Stroup said that she arrived at work two days after management received the union organizing letter and was asked by her department manager if she knew anything about the union.  Stroup told her manager that she was “part of it.”  According to Stroup, her manager became “rather irate and decide[d] not to talk about it because she doesn’t agree with my stance.”⁴⁴⁹   

Stroup said that the following day when she arrived at work, there was a letter in a notebook on the layaway counter.  The letter reportedly did not have Stroup’s name on it, but Stroup explained that her manager told her that she had written the letter for her and that when she picked it up to read it, she recognized her manager’s handwriting.⁴⁵⁰

Stroup told Human Rights Watch, “Many of the facts contained in the letter are false.  She wants to know why I believe a union will make a difference in Wal-Mart, and she continually comes back that I am just a kid that didn’t take any of the ‘Wal-Mart lifers’ into consideration.”⁴⁵¹  In relevant part, the letter stated:

You want better benefits, pay?  How long will it take to get it?  Days, months, years?  Years, usually!  How long are you going to be here for?  You’re going to college to go make yourself a career woman.  What about the Wal-Mart lifers?

Do you really need to pay someone to voice your opinion?  And even then will anything get done?  Wal-Mart & the union have to negotiate everything.  How long will the neg[otiations] last?

If we become union, who will help you get furniture, patio sets, weight sets, bikes built?  No one may help in a different dep[artment].  No carts, one cart pusher, too bad.  5 cashiers, 50 customers want to check out now, too bad.

If you used the open door with Rick [the store manager] and didn’t see any results, why didn’t you go to Sandy or higher?

If you have a problem, and your [sic] in a union, our [management] can’t help you [n]or can you vent your problems to fellow associates without getting fined.  You have to [put them] in writing to [a] union labor board and wait for them to take care of it.

(And by the way, what do you do that’s so demanding of your skills that deserves more pay?  What benefits do you demand to have that Wal-Mart doesn’t provide?  If you’ve done your homework on Wal-Mart benefits & think they’re crappy, then go get them somewhere else.[)]

Also, again, you’re a college student.  Your parents are paying your college tuition, some or all your bills, etc.  What exactly do you need more $ for?  Alcohol?  Partying?  Buying crap you don’t need?  What?

Are you going to stay at this store long enough to reap the benefits & better pay?  When you do get the union in here, you start paying dues right away, without the raise!  When will you actually get the money your [sic] looking for[?]  When will neg[otiations] start & end?

How much do you really know about what you’re trying to bring into a store that really doesn’t need it?  Or want it?⁴⁵²

Stroup concluded, “Honestly, that letter really upset me.”⁴⁵³  

Dividing the Store

According to workers, Stroup’s department manager was not the only member of the store’s management team to underscore the divide between the younger workers earning money to pay for college and older workers whose careers were with Wal-Mart.  Stroup and several of her co-workers explained to Human Rights Watch that they felt that Wal-Mart capitalized on this divide and its inherent tensions to foster opposition to worker organizing and create a store atmosphere increasingly uncomfortable for union supporters and hostile to pro-union views. 

West explained that he believed that managers purposefully pitted the younger pro-union workers against career workers: “Wes [Labor Relations Team member] said at the meeting on Friday—he worded it carefully—he said, ‘There are people who want this who won’t be here very long.’”⁴⁵⁴  “Bridgid Carpenter,” West’s co-worker speaking on condition of anonymity, recounted, “He [my assistant manager] said most of the people on the committee are college kids who won’t be at Wal-Mart that long and aren’t trying to make a career of Wal-Mart.  So, they won’t have to deal with the long-term effect of a union, as opposed to people who’ll be there ten to twenty years.”⁴⁵⁵  Stroup added, “[On] June 17, [an] article is published in the Greeley Tribune on our attempts at organization.  I arrived at work at 7:00 a.m., and the talk on the floor is how these ‘kids’ do not understand or know what . . . they are bringing in here.  They are just a bunch of troublemakers, and this never needed to get leaked to the press.”⁴⁵⁶  Stroup explained:

Regular hourly associates, once [they had] gone through the meetings, felt that there’s not a place for a union at Wal-Mart, that we were just a bunch of kids trying to create trouble. . . .  Other associates were angry with us.  I was approached by two associates who have worked there eleven and eighteen years, and they asked me why I was pushing for a union.  I’m a college student and won’t be here long enough to see the benefits.  I’m pushing it on people who don’t want it.⁴⁵⁷

The Anti-Union Campaign and the Labor Relations Team

Demonstrating to workers how seriously Wal-Mart takes the matter of worker organizing, the store manager reportedly announced at an all-store meeting the day after receiving the union campaign letter that he had “called out a ‘team of experts’ from the home office to give us [workers] valuable information about unions.”⁴⁵⁸  Casey Minor, a worker in the electronics department, added that the manager “talked about people coming from Arkansas just to talk to us about why they do not believe in the union and give us more facts.”⁴⁵⁹

Approximately three days later, three members of Wal-Mart’s Labor Relations Team reportedly arrived at the store.⁴⁶⁰ 

On their first visit, they remained for a week, and in subsequent weeks, one or two would reportedly return to run small meetings with workers.⁴⁶¹  As of mid-July 2005, members of the Labor Relations Team had conducted four sets of small-group meetings with workers about the union.  In each case, the meetings reportedly began on Tuesday and ended on Friday, and workers were scheduled to attend the meetings at designated time slots, with generally only one or two union supporters assigned to each slot surrounded by increasingly hostile anti-union co-workers.⁴⁶²

Wal-Mart characterized these anti-union captive audience meetings as educational.  Because the company is not legally required to allow union representatives a proportional opportunity to respond, it could virtually ensure that Wal-Mart alone framed most workers’ opinions of self-organizing, thereby precluding the possibility of a free, fair, and democratic union campaign at the store.  Stroup told Human Rights Watch, “They [Labor Relations Team members] kept explaining that they wanted us to make an educated decision, so during the Q&A, I posed the question: ‘[Doesn’t] an educated decision involve knowing both sides of an issue and weighing both to make a decision?’  I was told that they didn’t know the union’s stance, so they couldn’t help me.”⁴⁶³  Stroup’s co-worker “Bridgid Carpenter” added, “Home office kept saying this is an educational class.  It should not just give one side of the union.  They should give pro and con, not just con.  It’s not fair to the associates.”⁴⁶⁴ 

First Meeting: The Video

During the week of June 14, the first week that the Labor Relations Team was in the store, the team reportedly showed a video created by Paul French & Partners, a firm specializing in videos that help employers defeat worker organizing, and held question and answer sessions after the viewings.⁴⁶⁵  According to West, “All of the associates saw the video.  They say [that] it’s your option to go, but we really, really recommend that you go.”⁴⁶⁶  Summarizing the video, “Carpenter” explained, “The video, in my opinion, was saying if you sign the union card, you’re selling your soul.”⁴⁶⁷ 

Workers told Human Rights Watch that the video provided a brief history of the US labor movement.  According to West, the video concluded that while unions once enjoyed an important place in American society and are an important part of US history, “unions are no longer needed.”⁴⁶⁸  He explained: 

[The video] shows how the union movement started, how it created child labor laws, how it used to be good but now is running out of members, and now all they need is your money.  They’re losing footing because before it was one in three, and now in the private sector, it’s one in eight or one in ten.  Dues are falling.  They need dues.⁴⁶⁹ 

Stockburger added that the video conveyed the impression that “the union isn’t really needed any more because of labor laws.  They said the union did do a lot of good in the early twenties, but now that we have laws and such, we don’t need them anymore.  Now, they’re just a business that wants your money.”⁴⁷⁰

According to West, “the video started with a guy walking into his ten-year-old son’s room.”⁴⁷¹  Stroup added that the father was shown “holding a baseball, saying, ‘This is my son’s baseball that’s worth $15 unsigned, but signed [it] is worth a lot more.’”  She explained, “Their comparison is that the union card is worthless without your signature, and organizers will do anything to get this signature.”⁴⁷² 

Stroup and West recounted that the video continued by explaining that store-level union organizing begins with “disgruntled” employeesusually looking to “get even” by hurting the store.⁴⁷³  West added that the pro-union, “disgruntled” workers are “presented as angry people who want to hurt the business. . . .  How can that be good for you?”⁴⁷⁴  

The video also reportedly described extraordinary efforts to which union organizers will go to convince workers to sign union cards.  For example, Stockburger, Stroup, and West recounted a scene in the video in which the union was throwing a party for workers and the ticket into the party was a signed union card.⁴⁷⁵  West, Stroup, Stockburger, and “Carpenter” also recalled that the video depicted union organizers as persistent and harassing, chasing workers, making calls to workers’ homes, and relentlessly pressuring them to sign union cards.  Stockburger told Human Rights Watch, “They made the union and the union organizers look real evil.  It wouldn’t have been much worse if they’d put horns on their actors.”⁴⁷⁶  “Carpenter” commented:

It was making it like the committee members would hound you to the end, ‘till the death, to get you to sign the card and never get it back. . . .  They depicted the organizing committee as people who’ll be on your butt forever ‘till you sign the card, and that’s not how we are.  We’re not going to make you do something you don’t want to do.⁴⁷⁷ 

Stroup added that the video “depicts union organizers as bothersome people with an anti-employer agenda, . . . stalking people for signatures.”⁴⁷⁸  Stockburger concurred, “They made everyone involved with the union look really bad.  They [were] . . . so desperate to have the signature.”⁴⁷⁹  

Workers specifically recalled for Human Rights Watch the various scenarios developed in the video in which union organizers harassed workers to obtain their signatures on union cards.  West recounted:

There’s a scene where there’s a girl on an organizing committee.  A guy, an employee, is eating at a restaurant.  One of the organizers goes to a gas station trying to pressure him to sign a card.  He doesn’t want to.  He’s eating a meal at a restaurant by the window.  She slams a card up against the window.  He jumps up, and she goes in and sits down and shoves the card in his face, and he says, “If I sign this, will you leave me alone?” . . .  The same guy who was pressured into signing the card runs up to her [the organizer].  She’s in her car later somewhere.  He says he’s changed his mind and wants his card back.  She says, “I can’t help you,” and rolls up her window and speeds out of the scene.⁴⁸⁰

Stockburger also recalled, “They would have union people coming up to people’s cars when they were driving away from work and running after their cars and saying they needed the union.”⁴⁸¹

In their discussions with Human Rights Watch, Stockburger and “Carpenter” emphasized that the video’s depiction of union organizing tactics was inaccurate.  “Carpenter,” in particular, expressed her frustration, telling Human Rights Watch:

It was saying we’d follow them wherever they went, which is not true.  We have our own lives.  Anyone who saw the video would know it was anti-union, but they called it an educational video, which it wasn’t.  It made me pretty upset for the rest of the night. . .  If you’re going to call it educational, educate.  Don’t just give one side. . . .  Home office just pissed me off. . . .  The information they were giving just was not right.”⁴⁸²               

Also commenting on the portrayal of union organizers in the video, Stockburger explained, “It wasn’t, of course, like that at all.  We would just talk to people and explain the benefits of a union and ask if they were interested, and if they said no, we wouldn’t hassle them at all.  We wanted to get them information that wasn’t Wal-Mart information.”⁴⁸³  

After the video showings, there were reportedly question and answer sessions.  According to Stroup, during these exchanges, the Labor Relations Team “would talk in circles about how Wal-Mart is not anti-union—they are pro-associate—and how many of our customers and family members of associates work for companies that are union.  Also, Wal-Mart uses union contractors to build their stores, so how could they possibly be anti-union?”⁴⁸⁴  “Carpenter” commented, “When I said this is very one sided,” one of the Labor Relations Team members replied, “‘Well, you can always get on the Internet and research it.’”⁴⁸⁵  

Subsequent Meetings: PowerPoint and Management Presentations

During the three meetings that followed the video showings, Labor Relations Team members and other Wal-Mart senior staff continued to underscore the limitations to and drawbacks of self-organizing. 

West and Stockburger recalled that the second meeting stressed union dues and highlighted UFCW’s boycotts and protests of Wal-Mart, asking, “How can this be good for you?” and explaining, “UFCW Local 7 has a dual agenda. . . .  They have continually tried to stop Wal-Marts from being built and even protested our Wal-Mart the day it opened. . . .  How could the UFCW truly care about our needs?”⁴⁸⁶    

The third and fourth meetings reportedly described Wal-Mart’s wages and benefits, telling workers that their compensation packages were comparable to those at non-union retailers and alleging that, in some cases, they were also even better than those at unionized grocery stores.⁴⁸⁷  Stroup described one of the meetings as detailing “how Wal-Mart workers make more than union workers.”  She summarized, “This one was about how if you go union, we won’t make more, but if you stay regular, you would make more.”⁴⁸⁸  West remembered that management characterized the healthcare plan for part-time workers at Safeway—a unionized competitor—as the “not-so-good Plan C” and the plan for which part-time workers must wait three years to qualify as the “rich Plan A,” implying that Wal-Mart’s existing healthcare plans were better.⁴⁸⁹  Minor commented:

They make it seem like the biggest and most complicated thing with the union.  You had to go through this plan and that plan, and then finally you could get your family covered, [but] only for part-time people at the union store. . . .  That was the part they could pick out where it was so complicated—just to make it look bad.⁴⁹⁰

 Without a meaningful opportunity to hear from union supporters or representatives, however, workers were unable to weigh both sides of the issue and assess Wal-Mart’s benefits claims for themselves.    

Conclusion

As it has many times before, Wal-Mart violated its workers' right to freedom of association in Greeley, Colorado, by employing its sophisticated array of anti-union tactics that go to the very brink of what weak US labor law allows.  As soon as rumors of union activity surfaced, store-level managers began to circulate more frequently among workers, increasing contact, in particular, with suspected union supporters.  After receiving official notification of organizing efforts, store management began to highlight the company’s Open Door Policy and the risks of union-led collective bargaining, warning workers of a real possibility of benefit loss.  Managers emphasized the divide between the mostly young union supporters and the mostly career Wal-Mart employees opposed to union formation, playing on existing tensions among workers and making the atmosphere increasingly unpleasant for pro-union workers.  At the same time, the Labor Relations Team arrived and through small-group captive audience meetings caused the anti-union drum beat to crescendo further.  Opposition to union formation grew as workers were inundated with anti-union information delivered by their powerful employer and exposed to few if any contradictory views.  Ultimately, the organizing drive collapsed.