Death of a Salesman

A global coalition of unions is launching an unprecedented campaign to organize workers around the world at US retail giant Wal-Mart, seeking to bring a new level of globalization to the labor movement. This global effort on Wal-Mart escalates a longstanding feud with the retailer and the US-based United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which has accused the retailer of "union-busting" efforts to keep US stores from unionizing. According to a statement from UFCW, Wal-Mart "pays poverty wages, ships jobs to countries where sweatshops are prevalent and, in the US, shifts enormous health care costs onto taxpayers." The UFCW isn't fighting to improve the lives of the 'average worker' and they could care less about 'sweat shops' in third world countries, so what gives? The UFCW is fighting for its existance. In the US there are about 800,000 union members, mostly in the grocery business. These unionized workers are employed at retail stores such as Kroger and Safeway. The problem is that these other retail grocers are losing market share and sales to Walmart. Walmart has developed not 'a' but 'the' state of the art distribution system. This system reduces shortages of popular items on store shelves and also tracks vast amounts of "purchasing data" for the manufactuers, Walmart and even the US Government. The other retailers aren't nearly as nimble and they have about an additional 20% layer of costs, due to union agreements and concessions. Some benefit cuts have been made, to the union's chagrin. But if a major retailer goes bust, it would spell disaster for the UFCW. They have no option but to get Walmart employees to join the union. For a union to be successful it needs to learn not to price itself out of the market. Higher wages, benifits, vacation(s), vested 401 plans and other wanted things are good to get but if it requires you to sell dollar bills for $1.25, it isn't going to work. Pickets, flyers, bullhorns, inflatable rats and all the other attention getting toys unions commonly use will be laughably pointless when confronted with market forces. And if countries change their laws to bend or blunt the effects of market forces on its unions, they become France.