Wal-Mart's labor pains

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/03/29/2007-03-29_walmarts_labor_pains.html

Wal-Mart's labor pains

Groups are winning the fight to keep the big box
away, but now there's bigger battle to aid poor

By ERROL LOUIS
DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST

Thursday, March 29th 2007, 4:00 AM

New York City's labor movement is about to take a victory lap for persuading Wal-Mart, the retail giant, to give up its attempts to open a store in Manhattan.

An unexpected, exasperated statement by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to The New York Times this week - "I don't care if we are ever here. ... I don't think it's worth the effort" - appears to write the final chapter on years of searching in vain for a foothold.

Scott later said that the company still would like to set up shop somewhere in the outer boroughs. But that will be a tall order.

For years now, in every place the company looked for a home, labor unions, lobbyists and politicians have thrown up roadblocks, sometimes by passing zoning rules to exclude Wal-Mart's trademark megastores.

Now the unions and politicians that worked so hard to keep Wal-Mart out of Gotham have a moral obligation to help low-income New Yorkers find another way to get low-cost goods.

The opposition to Wal-Mart by organized labor has been understandable, even commendable. The company is notorious for using union-busting tactics: In 2000, after a majority of butchers in a Jacksonville, Tex., Wal-Mart voted to unionize, the company simply stopped carrying fresh meat and fired all the butchers.

That hardknuckled approach goes hand in hand with offering lousy pay and skimpy benefits to employees. Many full-time Wal-Mart workers live near the poverty line and rely on government benefits or a spouse's health benefits to get by.

So many women have complained about Wal-Mart's job-assignment and promotion practices that more than 2 million women - current and former employees - have banded together in the largest sex-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history.

FULL story at link.