Two years ago, Wal-Mart launched a vigorous public relations campaign to convince the world that it treated its employees with fairness and dignity. Many in organized labor, however, were not impressed. The corporation’s efforts were derided in the media and on various pro-union websites.
Wal-Mart has now taken over the PR campaign. Its advocacy group, Working Families for Wal-Mart, will not be run by an outside PR agency.
To deal effectively with the United Food & Commercial Workers and with the Service Employees International Union, Wal-Mart will now use its own employees to get out its positive message. The Working Families website will feature employees and consumers who will speak favorably about the company. It will no longer rely on outside supporters.
This represents an intelligent and informed approach to getting out the Wal-Mart message, for no one can speak better on behalf of the employees than the employees themselves. This new campaign should finally convince the doubters and the cynics that Wal-Mart is a great American company that provides not only jobs, but opportunities to grow and realize goals.
It is about time: two major U.S. companies have filed civil racketeering (RICO) suits against unions that have been trying to organize their workers.
Wackenhut filed a suit against the Service Employees International Union, accusing the union of using strong-arm tactics while attempting to get company security guards to join the SEIU.
The other suit was filed by Smithfield Foods against the United Food and Commercial Workers. Smithfield has claimed that the UFCW launched a campaign that was “designed to destroy Smithfield’s public image and inflict maximum economic damage,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
As expected the charges have been denied by the unions.
This puts the unions on the defensive and lets them know that tactics deleterious to a company’s welfare will no longer be tolerated as a standard aspect of union organizing efforts. Now it’s time for other companies to get on the RICO bandwagon and let unions know that the days of “anything goes” are over!
The United States settled many Indian tribes on reservations, giving the tribes the opportunity to maintain tribal laws and traditions. Under such an arrangement, Indian casinos came into existence, and one of the largest is Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, which is owned and managed by The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.
In a surprise decision, an appeals court ruled that American Indian tribes are subject to federal labor laws. That decision opened the door to union organizing efforts.
Now more than 60 percent of dealers at Foxwoods have voted to join the United Auto Workers, which represents more than 6,000 casino workers. It made no difference to the court that the tribe had enacted its own labor laws to deal with union organizing efforts. The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation will appeal to the NLRB and perhaps to the Supreme Court. We can only hope that they prevail.
What happened to Foxwoods can happen to any other Indian run casino now that a court has obviated the rule of tribal laws. Indeed, every Indian run casino now has a union target on its back.
Unions are opportunists, and wherever they see a burgeoning business with thousands of non-union workers, they zero in for their attack. And the Indian casino industry generates about $26 billion in annual revenues. Imagine, for a moment, the amount of union dues that will now flow into UAW coffers.
For the unions, tribal rules, traditions, and laws are no longer obstacles to their organizing efforts. It’s shameful.