Wal-Mart closes down unionized store

April 30, 2005

The American discount chain, Wal-Mart, closed the doors at one of its two unionized outlets in North America Friday. The closure eliminated 190 jobs in the small town of Jonquière, Quebec. Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Kevin Groh said the store shut at noon Friday rather than the planned date of May 6 because it no longer had any merchandise.

Michael J. Fraser, the union's national director in Canada, said: "Wal-Mart is trying to send a message to the rest of their employees that if they join a union the same thing could happen to them." The union will be filing unfair labor practice charges against Wal-Mart in Quebec.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union has organizing drives in at least 25 Canadian stores. In August 2004, workers at the Jonquiere store received union certification, and tried to negotiate a contract, which would have been the first for Walmart in North America. Now St. Hyacinthe, Quebec has the only remaining unionized Wal-Mart in North America; employees of that store have no contract.

The consulting firm AT Kearny has stated that above all, low labor costs is a big source of cost advantage for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's employees might begin at as little as $8 an hour which is 20-30% less than unionized workers at rival discount stores.

In his first interview since the store's closing, Walmart CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr. defended his decision, saying to the Washington Post, "You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules that cause you to even be in worse shape."

The major sticking point according to Scott was the number of full-time employes. Scott said that it was the union who walked away from negotiations; however, Fraser said that Walmart walked away from the talks, shutting down the store to avoid submitting to arbitration.

Sources

Rich Zahradnik. "Wal-Mart closes down Canadian store unionized in '04" — Bloomberg, April 30, 2005
Sarah H. Long. ""Wal-Mart Grows from a Single Store to World Leader Wal-Mart Grows from a Single Store to World Leader" — VOA News, April 15, 2005
Michael Barbaro. "Wal-Mart Chief Defends Closing Unionized Store" — Washington Post, February 11, 2005

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.