Wal-Mart 's Unionized Quebec Store Closes : Thunderbay IMC

By PHIL COUVRETTE, Associated Press Writer Fri Apr 29, 6:43 PM ET

Reposted from http://www.labourstart.org/wal-mart/

MONTREAL - Wal-Mart Canada announced the closure of a unionized store in Quebec on Friday, a week ahead of schedule, prompting a senior union leader to call the retail giant "cowardly."

The store in Saguenay, whose employees formed a union last year but were never able to negotiate their first contract, was slated to close on May 6. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said the decision to close store, about 155 miles north of Quebec City, was "easy," since it had been losing money.

"Anyone who saw the store in the last few days should not have been surprised," said company spokesman Kevin Groh. "It was virtually a shell and there comes a time when it doesn't make a lot of sense to operate a department store without merchandise."

The world's largest retailer has fought off efforts to unionize its U.S. stores, but the United Food and Commercial Workers, or UFCW, has been making some headway in Canada. Michael Forman of the CFCW in Quebec accused the store of "cowardly" behavior.

"They accelerated the process of emptying the store because they're aware that next week there's going to be a day of action across the country at various Wal-Marts," Forman said.

Henri Masse, head of the Quebec Federation of Labor, called the early closing the latest "deceitful attack," and said it was an attempt by the U.S. retail giant to avoid the media glare as unions are planning a series of "actions" at Wal-Marts across Canada on May 6.

The company announcement came just as a provincial labor commission was to hear arguments Friday on a union motion aimed at preventing the company from closing the Saguenay store and other Wal-Mart outlets in Quebec.

Groh said the employees received 12 weeks notice, would be paid until May 6 and would receive two weeks of severance pay for every year of service.

That means most of them will get between seven and eight weeks of severance pay as well as career counseling, he said.

"Under normal circumstances, they would be entitled to two weeks of working notice, so I think we've gone above and beyond, and it's something we're very pleased to have been able to do," he was quoted as saying by The Canadian Press.

Groh said union contract demands would have required the hiring of 30 additional full-time employees.

"The business could not continue and frankly we were unable to convince the union to accept a contract that would have allowed the store to continue operating profitably and efficiently," he said.

Thank Goodness the UNION has saved 400 People from having to pay taxes on their earnings they No Longer have.
Now they can apply for union pay .....
And ' WOW ' they actually was trying to force Wally World to stay open even if they lost money....What a concept you people have......
Thanks Wall Mart for all you do...............Most hard working folks like you....

I only know of a few unions that function the way they were originally intended. The majority of unions harbour slackers with poor work ethic. Case in point, the recent CAW strike at Lakehead University. I attended that university for 6 years. I would never have guessed that there was a custodial or simple maintenance staff. I went 1.5 years without any lights in my lab while I was working with dangerous chemicals. I eventually had to go and buy a lamp to work under if I planned to finish my thesis in any reasonable amount of time. The majority of the staff could usually be found sitting around chatting with each other or other staff members. If I spent that much time in my job NOT doing my job, I would have been sacked. Some members of this union, of unskilled workers, are making more than some of the PhD professors. They make more than me and I have two science degrees.

Hmmm.....maybe instead of hating other people for making more than you, you should hate your boss for not paying you enough. remember: you chose to go to school so if you don't find your work rewarding, there's tonnes of unrewarding work that pays better. just because you got fooled into thinking that education would pay itself off is no reason to direct that hatred towards working people.

Better yet, ever thought of forming a union?

Have unions ever been useful?

Well, that depends on what you consider useful.

The 8 hour day, health and safety regulations, ending child labour and sweat shop conditions (in N. America and Western Europe), the weekend, overtime, benefits, collective bargaining leading to a more equal distribution of wealth thus creating a broad middle-class, plus the economic stability that comes from a happy workforce (the lastest ILO study for the UN, a survey of over 160 nations, the largest study of it's kind, concludes that unions and a unionized workforce increases productivity).

You could also consider useful the social action taken by unions, for example, longshoremen worldwide refusing to load or unload cargo headed to or coming from apartheid South Africa, the labour movement Solidarity in Poland and their major contribution towards loosening the screws of totalitarianism in their country, or closer to home, the wave of wildcat strikes by uranium miners in Elliot Lake that lead to the creation of the Ontario health and safety act in the 70's. These represent a ridiculously small sample of action by the labour movement that increased the scope of human freedom in the last 50 years.

Or consider this, what did the Nazi's do upon taking power in Germany in 1933, or Franco is Spain in 1939? Persecute and imprison unionists. Which countries today do not allow independent (i.e. effective and meaningful) unions? Cuba, China, North Korea. In other words, unionization tends to be a good measure of how democratic or undemocratic a society is.

Now, with a increasingly mobile (service industry) workfore based on precarious labour, the dismantling of social programs, privitization and the overall reduction of the social safety net, and the increasing power of capital, unions are incredibly important today, perhaps more so now than in the last 40 years!

This is particularly true in the case of Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world (in the U.S. alone Wal-Mart employs around 1.3 million people, or more than the U.S. military, with profits larger than the GNP of many countries) with a brutal history of violating basic rights and work standards. The Wal-Mart workers could really use a union.

How many masters students does it take to change a light bulb?

It is obvious that Wal-Mart has broken the legally binding labour codes of Quebec. The solution is socialism. The workers union takes over the store and runs it co-operativly and justly for the good and welfare of the community. In a word socialism solves the crisis of monopoly capitalism.

Yeah, socialism works. Just ask the Russians, Cubans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodians...etc. All bastions of freedom and equality.