Walmart Unions : an Oxymoron?

Nestled on Highway 16 on the outskirts of Terrace, BC is Walmart store #5834.
In this site a battle between the world’s largest retailer and North America’s
largest private sector union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) is currently
brewing. Come this October. the BC Labour Relations Board will decide whether
the UFCW has garnered enough support at the Walmart store to warrant a certification
of a union. If it resulted in a yes, the Terrace store would only be the first
unionized Walmart in BC and the second only in all of North America. Last month
UFCW Canada made labour history when it received certification for the only union
at a Walmart anywhere in North America, in Joncquiere, Quebec.

Yesterday as we all know is Labour day. For a great majority it probably just
seen as a long weekend, an extra day of non-working rest day. For some of
us, it is just an opportunity to brace ourselves for the opening of the school
year. But if you pause for a moment, as the name implies the day, commemorates
a particular group of people (No, Chris, not mother’s giving birth day….)

As Merriam and Webster describes labour, it is a noun that describes “a
social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages;”

When I read the news snippet last week about the Walmart Terrace store, I
kind of thought of my opinion on the relevancy of the labor movement in this
day and age of globalized business environment spurred by advances in technology.
I still think that a presence of a strong labor movement is essential as a
“check and balance” to the corporate world. It is even important
right now with the business situations where
jobs continue to
be moved overseas, bargaining rights continue to be eroded and family-supporting
jobs have become scarce.

However, so as much as most of the world learned to adapt to changing times
spurred by new advances in science and technology and the continued changes
in the attitude of people on a variety of issues, I felt unions and the labor
movement has never kept pace with the times.

From my observations on attitudes of various labour unions around
BC, it seems they keep on clinging on to ideals and actions that although seems
logical in the 19th and early 20th century is quite absurd in the our day
and age. Top of my list is the idea of promotion by seniority. Although seniority
at work could mean a more experienced person who knows his way around the job.
But we all know, the most senior person does not always mean the best person
for the job. A few months ago, the BC Ferries workers had a strike due to a
stalemate on the bargaining table. One of the management’s item on the table
was the idea of job promotions based on merit. That does not sit well with
the union, urging it should be seniority with merit. In other words, the short
list of candidates would be made of the most senior people on company and they
have to undergo an evaluation process by management to select the best person.
You see I have a problem with that, in my opinion just open up the qualifying
process to everybody and come up with a list of the best suited candidates
regardless whether a person is only 2 years or 10 years in the company,

From time to time, I get a health worker’s union newsletter in my mail, owing
to the possibility that the previous owner of the apartment was probably a
unionized nurse which had not bothered to inform of her change of address.
Whenever I get to read some of the articles in the newsletter, it always talk
about themes like “Keep up the fight”, “Know your rights” or an attack of a
particular institution. Which unfortunately feeds on my perception of unions,
being confrontational and inflexible.

A very classic example was the Movie Projectionist’s strike in late 1990s
in Vancouver. Management on the bargaining table has been proposing
a cut in the wages of the projectionist (during that period were from 26-38
/hr, in comparison nurses are around $20-25 /hr) on the reason with current
advances in technology, is not as mechanically demanding as it was before.
In short, it is just a matter of flicking few switches to run the projector.
Obviously, the union are not too happy with the idea and refused to accept
reality that the job does not command that high a pay cheque anymore. As a
result, Vancouver was treated with almost a year and half of lockdown
of theatres which the public found laughable. And to add insult to injury,
assistant managers (who gets paid 10-15/hr ) in those locked down theatres
filled in for the striking movie projectionist and with just a few hours of
training, managed to operate the movie projectors. In the end, the projectionist
lost their jobs as the whole episode had proven that their job is not as skilled
as it used to be and the theatre management can do without a full time projectionist.

I had a personal experience being involved in 2 unionized jobs before and
both experience gave me some unpleasant impressions. First one was a graveyard
shift job when I was in college. I have a co-worker which I might add was one
of the senior in the staff. It was acknowledged among us that he keeps screwing
around his job. One time coming to work intoxicated and twice caught sleeping
resulting on warnings on those occasions. Eventually management got fed up
and terminated him when he got caught sleeping a third time. The “poor” guy
went to the union office and requested that to get his job back. With the muscle
power of the union, management has to take him back. I am not quite sure what
happened after that because at that point I already quit to concentrate on
school.

The other union job I had was once again a shift work job. This time the concept
of seniority played a major role in the working conditions. Being at the bottom
of the totem pole I have to pick up all the shifts left over from what the
senior staff had already picked on. It was an unhealthy conditions where sometimes
I have to do shifts that only has 8 hours of separation. I practically had
nil social life then as I sometimes spend my day just sleeping or getting ready
for work. Eventually I come up with a shift schedule proposal that I felt would
be fair for everyone. That was met with antagonism because everybody does not
want to give up the convenience of their choice. I felt during then that “thinking
outside the box” work ethics is not something that works well in the hierarchical
working condition as a unionized job. Everybody is so set in their working
routines that a change (even though it spells fairness and improved working
condition) seems to be unwelcomed especially from someone who is a junior in
the company.

And I thought the caste system is just a thing that we just read on history
books.

The way I see it, Canadian unions would have greater success in breaking through
Walmart which seem to be not working in the US, as one labor official has mentioned
“labour laws in Canada are skewed against employers.. In the US, the widespread
“right to work” legislation undermines collective bargaining by allowing employees
to opt out of unions”.