Term Paper on "Industrial Disputes Law Employers and Unions"

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Union Labor Disputes Canada

Wal-Mart Canada

This report is an evaluative report and summary about the international retail giant Wal-Mart. There is no better presentation than one that presents the varying opinions in legal philosophy between unions and employers. As of late, Wal-Mart has been trying to fend off multiple attacks by organized labor over the past decade in an attempt to maintain its union free managerial style. "Union leaders say their chances for organizing Wal-Mart workers shot up this week when a federal judge in San Francisco said 1.6 million current and former employees could sue the retailer for sex discrimination in a class-action lawsuit." (Ramstack, 2004)

The Wal-Mart situation covers a full spectrum of legal concerns such as the acquisition and termination of collective representation of employees, unfair labor practices and the associated regulations, collective bargaining schemes, the scope of individual's rights for collective bargaining and basic constitutional rights in a labor context. A detailed evaluation of the existing turbulence at Wal-Mart will present an excellent opportunity for identifying and assessing whether existing Canadian labor statutes will be sufficient in meeting the objectives of both Wal-Mart and labor factions or if those regulations will need to be reconsidered. Wal-Mart Canada has been experiencing ongoing attempts by labor to organize the company's employees.

Canadian legal statutes have come under some fire as well because the process of measuring how well a legal system is protecting employee rights is a difficult task. The process of hiring and firing an employee has alway

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s been a concern in a retail operation such as Wal-Mart. Existing laws are of concern in these new rounds of labor negotiations. However, Canadian labor parties have contended for decades that the labor laws that govern a worker's right to belong to a union has always been in favor of the employer so they have been going directly after legislators in their effort to level the playing field so to speak.

Introduction

This research document represents a full evaluative case study of the international retail giant Wal-Mart and their continued attempts to thwart organized labor efforts in Canada and the associated outcomes of existing Labor Review Board cases that have dealt with the retailer. This evaluative effort proved significant and therefore warranted additional investigation. "... these results have important public policy implications. Recent public policies are increasing economic integration in Europe and North America (by way of the North American Free Trade Agreement, for example), and there is clearly a need to understand the ramifications of this integration. Since multinational organizations frequently assume increased prominence when such integration occurs, the results presented here constitute important evidence on the effect on labor relations of this increasing economic integration." (Budd, 1994)

The detailed evaluation of the existing turbulence within the employee ranks of Wal-Mart presents an excellent opportunity to identify and assess existing Canadian labor statutes and their ability to meet the objectives of multinational organizations such as Wal-Mart. This report therefore is presented in a format that first presents a history of the problems, issues and concerns regarding Wal-Mart including efforts to organize Canadian employees. From there, the research moves into an evaluation of some blatant shortcomings of certification, unfair labor practices and remedy provisions in existing Canadian labor legislation and efforts by Wal-Mart to utilize these shortcomings in there disputes.

The foundation for this report has it roots in the recent efforts of America's largest retailer Wal-Mart being put in the precarious position of fending off multiple attempts to organize their employees by organized labor movements in both the United States and Canada. An example of the trends for labor organization can be demonstrated by the June 2004 combined efforts of multiple organized labor factions planning and implementing multi-million dollar campaigns in an effort to organize Wal-Mart's existing and potential employees.

Wal-Mart Guilty

Promoting and protecting workers' rights in multinational companies like Wal-Mart is often difficult. "When you're the world's biggest retailer, your size alone guarantees that virtually everyone has an opinion about you. For Wal-Mart, those opinions range from awe and admiration to fear and loathing, especially among its competitors, which now include nearly every retailer in the United States and a growing number of companies overseas." (McTaggart, 2003) the basic operating procedures and employee rights concerns for large retail companies in the world have poor track records for established hiring and firing, pay scale and work programmes.

However, on May of 2003, the British Columbia Labour Relations Board ruled against a local Wal-Mart citing that the store's management team in Quesnel violated employee rights in regard to a complaint from union officials. "The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 1518 laid a complaint against Wal-Mart as a result of the company's blatant interference with its employees' right to join a union. The Labour Relations Board found that Wal-Mart had violated the Labour Code which guarantees workers the right to decide free of intimidation and coercion to join, or not join, a union." (walmartworkerscanada, 2003)

The Labour Relations Board at the time ordered Wal-Mart's management to hold a meeting for its employees in the store to literally read the Summary of Decision of the findings that Wal-Mart was in deed guilty of violating the Labor Code. In addition, the Board also ruled that the union involved was to receive a thirty minute address for all employees' interested in hearing the recruitment pitch of the union officials as well. To add insult to injury, Wal-Mart was also required to post the verdict on the store's bulletin boards. One union member was quoted as having said, "All we as a Union have ever asked is that Wal-Mart respect the law in British Columbia in the same manner we do and allow its employees to make a fair and informed decision as to whether they want to join our Union or not. We are always prepared to accept the decision of the workers we attempt to organize and Wal-Mart should do the same." (walmartworkerscanada, 2003) the union official also was clear when he claimed that Wal-Mart practiced illegal behaviors on a regular basis. "Wal-Mart keeps pleading publicly how much it respects its employee's legal rights, but virtually every time employees talk to a Union, which is their right under the law, Wal-Mart violates those rights." (walmartworkerscanada, 2003)

Working conditions and employee rights

In April of 2003, attorneys opened a sex discrimination suit against Wal-Mart on behalf of one and half million women who the plaintiffs claimed were only seen as 'housewives supplementing their income.' "The suit, filed by six women in June 2001, accuses Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, of paying women less than men for similar work and awarding promotions through an old boys' network that has kept women's numbers low. Monday's motion sought to bring the statistics to life with declarations from 110 women in 30 states..." (walmartworkerscanada, 2003) Although these suits were filed in the United States, they could have international implications.

Wal-Mart's legal team did not deny that there may have been some cases of discrimination but of those, they were individual cases based on the fact that the organization is so large. They were also clear to point out that in no way were there any organization wide conspiracies. "Allen said the company conducted a study that showed men and women were paid substantially the same in 90% of the stores, and the proportion of women who won promotions was the same as the proportion who applied. He also said Wal-Mart is "an extremely decentralized company" that gives substantial autonomy to managers of its 3,400 stores." (walmartworkerscanada, 2003)

The key to this matter was that "women made up 67% of the company's hourly workers in 2001 but only 35.7% of assistant managers, 14.3% of store managers and 9.8% of district managers, plaintiffs' lawyers said. They said women earned about $1,100 a year less than men among hourly workers in 2001 and $14,500 less among management workers." (walmartworkerscanada, 2003)

This large contingent of female employees was not organized via labor party or union agreement because Wal-Mart is basically a non-union supporting organization and only a few locations have been mandated for certification. This type of law suit would be guaranteed to bring attention to the Wal-Mart working and fair labor conditions as well as to the many other employee relations concerns such as organization via unions. More attempts at organizing the often vocal and many times disgruntled Wal-Mart labor force may therefore be on the horizon. "In addition, the UFCW has spearheaded an organizing drive in Ontario, targeting the Wal-Mart store in Pickering. The Ontario Labour Relations Board is currently inquiring into union allegations that Wal-Mart committed an unfair labor practice by dismissing an employee of the Pickering store, and taking reprisals against another, because of their involvement in the union's organizing campaign." (Labour Law News, 2004)

Wal-Mart has been very instrumental at altering and possibly even establishing the working conditions of the entire nation of Canada. When a union wins certification in… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "Industrial Disputes Law Employers and Unions" Assignment:

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This paper is to be given to the ***** JSF. The *****'s

email is JSF*****@aol.com. I have talked specifically with the ***** and he wants to take this paper on because he is the only one in your company that can finish it, since he has already written an abstract and proposal for me.

The ***** wants to be notified via email, which number the paper gets so that he can pull it off the board and work on this paper.

The instructions are below with my abstract:

This paper is for a 2nd year Law school program in Canada.

I would like a 20 page research paper, that follows the abstract and proposal that I have written will give you some guidance

I just wanted to suggest some changes to the abstract that should be implemented into the 20 page paper.

Using the legal issues that have arisen surrounding organizing attempts at Wal-Mart stores. However, a full evaluative report of Canadian labour standards may be too broad a topic for this paper.

I suggest that you use Wal-Mart as a case study. Look at Labor Relations Board cases dealing with Wal-Mart organizing attempts in Canada and the outcomes of these cases. Basically, they show that employer misconduct can defeat the union and circumvent the purposes of labour legislation. From this you can move onto an evaluation of the shortcomings of certification, unfair labor practice and remedy provisions in Canadian labour legislation.

This would make for a shorter, tighter, paper than the abstract is contemplating. However, I think it will be just as interesting, and just as compelling.

The abstract I am providing contains these elements already, so some revision and a bit of reorganization is all that is in order.

Also the citation style should be in a footnote style. Also I need the citation to be done following the style and form set out by the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation. This book is prepared by the McGill law journal. It should be available in any legal library. This is imperative as in the previous two orders, it was not done. If this can not be done then I will accept normal footnoting which I will alter. Thank you.

This abstract can be altered to suit your abilities as long as the main points are kept. I am flexible as to how the paper can be written and I will provide all the assistance that I can. There is somewhat of a time restriction on it but that can be discussed later. I am hoping the work on this abstract and the references will make it a little easier on your qualified *****s. Thank you.

Here is the abstract:

Union Labor Disputes Canada

Wal-Mart Canada

This abstract presents a foreshadow for what would be the foundation for a full evaluative report on the retail giant Wal-Mart and the effects recent labour disputes have had on the likes of Canadian labour legislation, local labour dispute resolutions and the intervention on the part of unions to recruit Wal-Mart employees. There is no better presentation than one that presents the varying opinions in philosophy between unions and employers. In the United States, the retail giant Wal-Mart has been trying to fend off multiple attacks by organized labour, as the retail conglomerate has had to consistently contend with what could be considered an increasingly turbulent work force. In June of 2004 for example, unions in the United States were making a concerted effort to plan and implement a multi-million dollar campaign to organize Wal-Mart’s existing and potential employees. “Union leaders say their chances for organizing Wal-Mart workers shot up this week when a federal judge in San Francisco said 1.6 million current and former employees could sue the retailer for sex discrimination in a class-action lawsuit.” (Ramstack, 2004)

The Wal-Mart situation covers a full spectrum of legal concerns such as the acquisition and termination of collective representation of employees, unfair labour practices and the associated regulations, collective bargaining schemes, the scope of individual’s rights for collective bargaining and basic constitutional rights in a labour context. A detailed evaluation of the existing turbulence at Wal-Mart will present an excellent opportunity for identifying and assessing whether existing Canadian labor statutes will be sufficient in meeting the objectives of both Wal-Mart and labour factions or if those regulations will need to be reconsidered. In addition, this case holds legal intrigue, which includes acts of inclusive destruction, fabrication, and suppression of evidence. As both sides are spending small fortunes on legal representation and lobbying efforts, the labor disputes will affect legal precedence for years to come. These proceedings also offer an opportunity to review how the legal situation migrated to this point.

In 2003, Wal-Mart was credited with adding nearly ten billion Canadian dollars back into the economy either directly or indirectly. At a time when globalization and technological advances have helped Wal-Mart to expand and turn consistent profits, the retailer has been outwardly criticized for offering wages and working conditions that are far too low. The treatment of female employees, turnover policies and other Human Resource concerns such as low value job creation have all become nightmarish concerns for the retailer. Wal-Mart’s position has been quite the opposite. “Wal-Mart Canada employs more than 65,000 Canadians and has been ranked Canada's best retail employer twice during the past three years by international human-resources firm Hewitt Associates and Report on Business Magazine. The company is committed to community involvement and has contributed more than $35 million to Canadian charities. Wal-Mart Canada was established in 1994, is headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, and operates 234 Wal-Mart discount stores and six SAM'S CLUBS in Canada.” (Wal-Mart Canada, 2004)

Even with this optimistic view, Wal-Mart Canada has been experiencing ongoing attempts by labor to organize the company’s employees. “It has been several weeks since the Jonquiere store was automatically certified with the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW), but no communication from the union has been received with regard to beginning talks with the company. The Jonquiere store is not meeting its business plan, and the company is concerned about the economic viability of the store. Wal-Mart Canada believes the unresolved labor situation at the Jonquiere store is proving detrimental to improving the performance of the store. (Wal-Mart Canada, 2004)

Canadian legal statutes have come under some fire as well because the process of measuring how well a legal system is protecting employee rights is a difficult task. “The study of industrial relations systems permits at the same time, an examination of the role of the state in reproducing antagonistic production relations.” (Shorter, 1987) In some cases, quantitative measures are easily utilized like the number of months notice required before the collective redundancies process initiates. “But other aspects are more difficult to measure precisely, such as the willingness of labour courts to entertain law suits filed by fired workers or judicial interpretation of the notion of 'just cause" for termination.” (Bertola, Boeri, & Cazes, 2000)

The process of hiring and firing an employee has always been a concern in a retail operation such as Wal-Mart. Unions have used the high turnover rates and retention polices as major factions of their recruitment process. “In the United States and Canada, for example, labor turnover is about twice as high as in most European countries. Similarly, average job tenure is significantly longer in countries with more stringent Employment protection legislation (EPL), such as Italy and France. In other respects, however, the evidence does not readily conform to theoretical predictions. For example, if gross job turnover is taken as a rough p***** for labor market flexibility -- and since stringent EPL reduces both hiring and firing -- it is quite surprising to find that job turnover rates are very loosely related to EPL rankings. Most remarkably, not only are the estimates for Italy and France, at 21 and 24 per cent respectively, very high in absolute terms (one in every five jobs is either created or destroyed each year), but they are also extremely close to the estimates for the United States and Canada despite the much heavier regulation of dismissals in the European labor markets.” (Bertola, Boeri, & Cazes, 2000) The policies associated with hiring an employee is as crucial to the labor movement as the right to unionize for this reason.

In conclusion, this abstract presented a foreshadow of the foundation for a full evaluative report on the retail giant Wal-Mart and the effects of past and present labor disputes have on the likes of Canadian labor legislation, future local labor disputes resolution and intervention for the Canadian based Wal-Mart employees. There is no better presentation than one that presents the vast differences in philosophy between unions and employers. In the United States and Canada, Wal-Mart will continue to have to fend off attempts by the parties to usurp what could be considered an increasingly turbulent Wal-Mart labor force as can be demonstrated by the June 2004 multi-million dollar campaign to organize Wal-Mart’s existing and potential employees.

References

Bertola, Giuseppe, Boeri, Tito, & Cazes, Sandrine (2000). Employment Protection in Industrialized Countries: The Case for New Indicators. International Labour Review, Vol. 139, .

Ostry, Sylvia, & Woods, H. D. (1962). Labour Policy and Labour Economics in Canada. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada.

Ramstack, Tom (June 26, 2004). Unions see chance at Wal-Mart. The Washington Times. Retrieved November 12, 2004 from http://washingtontimes.com/business/20040625-095856-2852r.htm

Shorter, Tilly (1987). State Constructed Industrial Relations and the Social Reproduction of Production: the Case of the Canadian Idia . Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 24, .

Wal-Mart Canada. (2004, November 15). News Release. Retrieved November 16, 2004, from http://www.walmartcanada.ca/

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