Fighting a Two-Front War

The United Food and Commercial Workers union has been fighting a war on Wal-Mart’s expansion efforts from the time of Wal-Mart’s conception in Bentonville, AR. The reason being that according to The San Diego Union-Tribune, “Wal-Mart typically pays many its new employees less than $10 an hour, and doesn’t immediately offer health benefits to new workers. That compares with wages of up to $25 an hour and a wide range of health and pension programs guaranteed to employees under the current labor contract between the United Food and Commercial Workers union and major supermarket chains such as Albertson’s, Ralphs, Vons and several smaller companies.”
This poses a problem to not only the 11,000 unionized grocery workers in San Diego, but to the rest of the unionized workers across the country. “With revenues of $218 billion in 2001, Wal-Mart is the country’s biggest company and largest retailer.” And since Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the US, its “newest growt...