Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock), February 13, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)

February 13, 2005 Sunday

SECTION: BUSINESS MATTERS

HEADLINE: Second union joins Wal-Mart critics' ranks

BYLINE: BY CHRISTOPHER LEONARD ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

BODY:
When Wal-Mart launched a Web site promoting itself as a good employer, it wasn't surprising that the company's labor union critics would react. But the biggest response came from a union that isn't even trying to organize Wal-Mart workers.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. unveiled its "Wal-Mart Facts" Web site Jan. 13. Less than two weeks later, the Service Employees International Union responded in kind with "Wal-Mart Fact Checker," a site that portrays the Bentonville-based retailer as a stingy employer.
Historically, when Wal-Mart tussles with a union, it goes up against the United Food and Commercial Workers union. That organization, known as the UFCW, has tried to organize Wal-Mart workers for decades with little success.
The increasingly high profile of the service workers' union, known as SEIU, represents a significant shift in Wal-Mart's ongoing struggle against organized labor. Now the nation's biggest employer is facing a two-pronged attack by unions. While the UFCW tries to organize Wal-Mart workers, SEIU says it will pressure Wal-Mart to improve employee benefits through national information campaigns.
SEIU represents about 1.7 million service-sector workers, like janitors and nurses' assistants. The union has no interest in representing any of Wal-Mart's 1.5 million employees, but cannot afford to ignore the company, said Gina Glantz, head of SEIU's Wal-Mart campaign.
"The Wal-Mart business model affects all workers," Glantz said. "It begins to set a standard that is a standard under which workers suffer from low wages and little access to benefits."
Such criticism sparked Wal-Mart to undertake a national public relations campaign to "set the record straight." The advertising portrays many of Wal-Mart's critics as motivated by self-interest.
Company spokesman Sarah Clark characterized SEIU's new Web site as a sort of knee-jerk reaction to Wal-Mart's new effort.
"We are not surprised by this reaction," Clark said. "They are simply in the reactionary mode, and we are in the doer mode. We believe we are in the best position to share the real facts about our company, and we will allow our facts to stand alone."
SEIU has a key advantage in campaigning against Wal-Mart - since SEUI's members don't work for Wal-Mart, their jobs are not at risk when they criticize the company or promote collective bargaining.
On Wednesday, Wal-Mart announced it will close a store in Canada where the UFCW was negotiating a contract of behalf of 190 workers who joined the union in August. It would have been the first UFCW contract with Wal-Mart. A company spokesman said Wal-Mart could not meet demands the UFCW was making for employees at the store in Jonquiere, Quebec.
Wal-Mart's site is at www. walmartfacts.com. SEIU's site is at www.purpleocean.org/ walmart.
The two Web sites seem as different as a photo and its negative. Each contradicts the other's assertions. For example, Wal-Mart highlights its charitable giving while the SEIU criticizes the Walton family's giving when compared to other wealthy philanthropists like Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Corp.
One thing is clear - now that SEIU has entered the fray, Wal-Mart is facing the largest and fastest-growing union in the country, said Richard Hurd, professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
"The SEIU is pretty much the healthiest union financially and a union that's very aggressive," Hurd said. The UFCW claims about 1.4 million members to- day, compared to SEIU's 1.7 million, according to the unions.
During the 1990s, SEIU grew in numbers while the UFCW stagnated, Hurd said. That's largely because the SEIU invests far more than most other unions on organizing new workers, he said.
The two unions operate with different styles as well, Hurd said. SEIU boosts membership by getting workers involved in protests or other efforts. The UFCW, by contrast, prefers to go after employers, using boycotts or other means to pressure them into letting workers join the union, Hurd said.
Because the SEIU effort is constrained to a publicity campaign, it will likely have a limited effect on Wal-Mart, said Ulysses Yannas, a retail analyst with Buckman, Buckman & Reid, an investment firm in New Jersey that does not own any stock in Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart has proven to be almost immune from such campaigns in the past, Yannas said. The company's core customer group of lower-income shoppers will continue to spend money there based on one factor alone - price.
"As long as [Wal-Mart] can continue to manage the company the way that they do, as long as they continue to offer the lowest price, people will continue shopping," he said.
The SEIU campaign would only be a risk for Wal-Mart's bottom line if it ultimately helps organize the retailer's employees, Yannas said.
Whether that happens depends on the extent of coordination between the SEIU and the UFCW as they both deal with the Bentonville giant, Hurd said.
So far, coordination seems limited.
SEIU's Glantz said the two unions are not coordinating efforts at all on SEIU's Wal-Mart Web site. A UFCW spokesman did not return calls seeking comment.