New Orleans  We told you so!  We just couldn’t be heard clearly enough over the roaring engines of the corporate spinning machinery of Walmart in September 2005.

Let’s set the stage exactly.  In Florida at the sharp point of the organizing engagement at Walmart as the curtain was being pulled down [...]]]>

Walmart Store in Mexico City

New Orleans  We told you so!  We just couldn’t be heard clearly enough over the roaring engines of the corporate spinning machinery of Walmart in September 2005.

Let’s set the stage exactly.  In Florida at the sharp point of the organizing engagement at Walmart as the curtain was being pulled down by all of the top corporate management from Lee Scott, the CEO on down, we were convening the first Sitefighters’ Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida bringing together Walmart Watch, Wake-up Walmart, and all of the other key players around the country to strategize on how to bring community, workplace, and political pressure to force some accountability on the company.  Walmart Watch, a coalition driven by SEIU, and Wakeup Walmart, the UFCW’s effort to tackle the company on the web, were nicking the company regularly in the papers, and our efforts through our community-labor alliance, WARN (Walmart Alliance for Reform Now) and direct organizing of workers in the Walmart Workers Association were showing good results.

At that same time in September 2005 when Walmart was trying to garner good publicity for its logistical response to Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, the internal reality was “duck and cover:”

In September 2005, a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an alarming e-mail from a former executive at the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. In the e-mail and follow-up conversations, the former executive described how Wal-Mart de Mexico had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, he said, the company had paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country.

The lengthy New York Times piece by David Barstow gives an amazing inside look at how Walmart was working from the bunkers of Bentonville and the impact our work was having:

Under fire from labor critics, worried about press leaks and facing a sagging stock price, Wal-Mart’s leaders recognized that the allegations could have devastating consequences, documents and interviews show. Wal-Mart de Mexico was the company’s brightest success story, pitched to investors as a model for future growth. (Today, one in five Wal-Mart stores is in Mexico.) Confronted with evidence of corruption in Mexico, top Wal-Mart executives focused more on damage control than on rooting out wrongdoing.

In one meeting where the bribery case was discussed, H. Lee Scott Jr., then Wal-Mart’s chief executive, rebuked internal investigators for being overly aggressive. Days later, records show, Wal-Mart’s top lawyer arranged to ship the internal investigators’ files on the case to Mexico City. Primary responsibility for the investigation was then given to the general counsel of Wal-Mart de Mexico — a remarkable choice since the same general counsel was alleged to have authorized bribes.

The level of bribes?  $24,000,000 has been documented.  Most were paid through an elaborate network of fixers (gestores). 

All of the top brass at Walmart knew the score.  Lee Scott slowed the investigation down and punted it back.  Michael Duke, who was their international man at the time, and the executive of our ACORN International’s India FDI Watch Campaign was checkmating in India to stop their expansion there,  knew the whole deal and is now the Walmart CEO.  The head of the “ends justify the means” team for Walmart in Mexico fueling the fire of corruption, Eduardo Castro-Wright, is now the retiring Vice-Chairman of Walmart.

Lee Scott

As the whistleblower allegations finally found traction, the company filed a vague “play pretend” notice with the FCC without identifying that the problem was in Mexico and still claiming there would be no “material impact” to its results.  Now of course there will be full scale investigations in Mexico and in the United States for violations of both countries laws.  In the US these bribes by Walmart are clear criminality under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  It is hard to imagine a clearer case of situations where top executives should be held accountable (Scott, Castro-Wright, Dukes, etc) and face criminal charges and potentially jail.  In Mexico the detailed annotations on the invoices indicating the officials who were bribed could absolutely lead to jail time as the scandal widens.

An international corporate culture based on bribery also makes us wonder whether the same system has been active in their work to expand and find a foothold in India where their efforts and others to modify the restrictions on foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail have been huge political issues in recent months, bringing government to a standstill at some points.

All of this is huge and demands sweeping action.

Click to read the entire  Times story.

Buenos Aires One of the flash points in the USA immigration reform debate continues to be over the demand from farmers for help in their fields from migrant agricultural workers.  Recently  they left the Republican (and Obama Administration) consensus in droves as US-farmer organizations and Congresspeople bridled at the fact that employers, i.e. [...]]]>

Buenos Aires One of the flash points in the USA immigration reform debate continues to be over the demand from farmers for help in their fields from migrant agricultural workers.  Recently  they left the Republican (and Obama Administration) consensus in droves as US-farmer organizations and Congresspeople bridled at the fact that employers, i.e. farmers, would have to pay steep fines for hiring undocumented workers.  The so-called bracero program has long been out of business in the US, which used to bring up seasonal workers from Mexico into the fields of California, Texas, and Arizona, and from the Caribbean to help in tobacco, cranberry, and other harvests in the Northeastern states.

ACORN International crack researchers led by Carleton University (Ottawa) volunteer, Amanda Sullivan, and ramroded by ACORN International and Edinburgh University (Scotland) super-summer intern, Melanie Craxton, stumbled onto a huge program though in Canada while researching remittance ripoffs as part of ACORN International and its federated partners on-going Remittance Justice Campaign (www.remittancejustice.org).   The Canadian SAWP is not an armed strike team, but 20,000 migrant workers from Mexico and the Caribbean Islands who are recruited through bi-national agreements and shipped up to the fields of Canada, largely in British Columbia and southern Ontario, as part of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program.  Needless to say conditions are regularly reported as substandard and exploitive by our long-time partners, the UFCW and its agricultural workers organizing program which has been in the fields for years with these workers.

In fact the Canadian government extracts a 25% of wages share for taxes and the like which will never benefit these workers who will return home after a maximum of eight (8) months in the field.  Neither does the Canadian government seem to care much about how much money they actually go home with even though ostensibly that is one of the goals of this cooperative labor exchange.  The workers are in fact even chosen according to the SAWP criteria because they have stable families, and that means invariably they send significant remittances (about 50% of wages while in Canada) back home to their families.

The money transfer organizations of choice according to our researchers interviews are Western Union and a smaller, somewhat cheaper company called Vigo.  Either way a huge chunk of their checks are extracted by these MTOs, way over the 5% maximum demand that ACORN International has made as part of the Remittance Justice Campaign and that Canada as part of the G-8 has claimed to adopt as a world standard.

Talking to SAWP representatives though was like visiting Mars.  Yes, Canada collected its taxes.  Yes, the migrant workers made remittances home.  No, the governmental representatives had no idea how much was extracted by the MTOs of the checks, despite these bi-national agreements with Mexico and Caribbean countries.  It is impossible to escape the core immorality, even venality, of this predatory governmental operation.  The Canadian government gets migrant help for its agricultural enterprises, profits from taxes that can’t benefit the workers, and then turns a blind eye as predatory fees are extracted from the laborers before they return home with what little is left.

ACORN International and its federated partners like ACORN Canada, ACORN Mexico, and ACORN Dominican Republic, have stumbled onto a scandal and are busily preparing demands to force immediate change in these practices along the lines we have continued to make in recent months for cost caps and desperately needed regulations.  Without a doubt this is an outrage that demands the authorities finally listen and act!

Belva Whitt from the original Wal-Mart Workers Association in Tampa, FL

Ottawa The UFCW’s effort to assist the development of a workers’ association for the so-called “associates” of Wal-Mart finally has made its debut after a long period of work, claiming thousands of members and organization on the ground in California, [...]]]>

Belva Whitt from the original Wal-Mart Workers Association in Tampa, FL

Ottawa The UFCW’s effort to assist the development of a workers’ association for the so-called “associates” of Wal-Mart finally has made its debut after a long period of work, claiming thousands of members and organization on the ground in California, Texas, Washington State, as well as efforts in Florida and elsewhere that are well known.  The coming out party was predictably a piece by one of the last of the labor reporters, Steve Greenhouse of the New York Times.  He interviewed Dan Schlademan, the director of the UFCW’s Making Change at Wal-Mart division.

Schlademan is well respected in the labor movement and rose over his years at SEIU to a key position as officer and organizing director of Local 1 based in Chicago with responsibilities from the Midwest through Texas, including the recognition drives for janitors in Houston, whose success surprised many observers.   Dan is a solid and straightforward organizer, who contributed greatly over the years with insight and imagination to several Organizers’ Forum dialogues where he participated actively, was good company, and a friend.

His argument was stated plainly and is inarguable:

“Mr. Schlademan said Wal-Mart employees should not have to wait until Wal-Mart someday recognizes the union through an organizing drive before they have a voice on the job.”

Greenhouse mentioned our effort to build the Wal-Mart Workers Association among workers in Florida between 2004 and 2009 as the predecessor to this new initiative following in many of our same footsteps and now called OUR Wal-Mart (Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart).   For some reason he calls it the “foundation-backed” effort which is interesting, though wishful thinking and inaccurate.  We did get some small – and much appreciated — support from several foundations, but as he knew the bulk of the resources came from SEIU, as part of its overall initiative and convention pledge to reform the company, and the AFL-CIO, which also put in staff and resources.  The UFCW was a more begrudging partner at the time, suspicious of SEIU’s intentions at one level and still trying to sort out how to politically sell the new “majority union” associational model that we were promoting within the existing grocery locals around the country.  We had in fact concentrated in Florida for many excellent reasons, but were mindful that it was also easier to develop the workers association model there since no strong grocery or retail locals existed in the state at that time.  I can still remember vividly my conversations with President Joe Hansen of the UFCW and telling him we had good news and bad news.  The good news was that the pilot worked, workers joined, we won issues and grievances at the store level, and people paid dues and built organization.  The bad news for him was that the pilot worked, workers joined, we won issues and grievances at the store level, and people paid dues and built organization, and I did not know if there was a deep enough consensus within UFCW to adapt to a new organizing model with Wal-Mart.  The question was unanswered until now.

While directing the project I wrote several pieces about the strategy and techniques (available under “writing” on www.chieforganizer.org) and talking with Rick Smith, who was on the ground with me in Florida, we could both count a number of conversations with organizers and consultants going through with us the steps we had taken to build the 1000 members we had in more than 30 stores in central Florida at the high water mark of the effort.   It is gratifying to see this new effort and fingers are crossed and we are sending good love in their direction.

The real death knell for the Wal-Mart Workers’ Association had nothing to do with the success of the association or the actions of the leaders and members in the stores on the ground.  The indecision and suspicion within UFCW made our project untenable there, and in the unraveling of the labor movement between the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, where SEIU and UFCW were founding partners, we became an uncomfortable friction point and aggravation at the level of top floor politics that trumped the work on the ground.  When Andy Stern, then President of SEIU, embraced Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart in trying to create a health care reform coalition and UFCW’s Hansen was not in the room, we were dead within days, as Hansen demanded SEIU shutoff support for our project and reaffirm their pledge that Wal-Mart was squarely in UFCW’s jurisdiction.   Within two weeks I had to lay off 20 organizers in the field, cutting the heart out of the capacity of the project.  Diminished and without labor institutional support at best we could only maintain the Wal-Mart Workers’ Association.   Rick and I were able to keep the work robust on the site fighting program in Florida much longer, finally stopping construction of 32 consecutive superstores, and the India FDI Watch Campaign thwarting the company’s development there continues to this day, but despite herculean hustle, subcontracting, other initiatives in California by 2009 I couldn’t keep the pieces together any more on the Florida program and we pulled the plug.  Talking to one of the old organizers with the WWA a couple of weeks ago in Florida, she reported that she still hears from the leaders in Orlando and St. Pete, and they are still hunkered down in the stores, but that’s what’s left of the heartbeat.

In organizing we all stand on each other’s shoulders.   It would be great to see OUR Wal-Mart become the workers’ voice in Wal-Mart.  There’s much to be done and much to be won.  The problem today though is no different than it was several years ago.  To build the organization of workers will take years, huge resources, and deep commitment.  My assessment continues to be that we need 100,000 to 150,000 dues paying members in a Wal-Mart Workers’ Association to be a sustainable force with sufficient voice and strength to leverage the company.

A good start isn’t enough.  We’ve done that and been there.  We need to finally get the job done.  It’s worth doing.  It could change the entire labor movement, and that’s worth the work as well.

            New Orleans               It’s amazing to me how many people came up to me over the last week on the East Coast and mentioned having read my recent blog about “Pink Sheeting and One-on-One’s” in UNITE-HERE and elsewhere in the labor movement.  Google analytics tells me that this is most frequently visited current item on [...]]]>  

            New Orleans               It’s amazing to me how many people came up to me over the last week on the East Coast and mentioned having read my recent blog about “Pink Sheeting and One-on-One’s” in UNITE-HERE and elsewhere in the labor movement.  Google analytics tells me that this is most frequently visited current item on the list.

            An email shared with me by some young labor organizers who were veterans of the Cornell program reminded me how destructive such conflict is to the future of the labor movement.  An SEIU organizer was recounting the struggles to put together a majority in a unit of a couple of hundred workers over a number of months to suddenly find six UNITE/HERE organizers swoop down to turn the unit topsy-turvy.  There are probably similar stories with the union’s names reversed.  All of this redefines the “race to the bottom” in union membership and relevance for working people in America.

            Other former organizers tried to pull me on either side of the divide.  An ex-AFSCME organizer told me about a recent fundraiser in Montclair for the divisive effort being led by Sal Roselli in the Bay Area.  He was interrupted by an SEIU contractor who had done some communications work in California telling him he had no clue of what was going on.  I left them still arguing the fine points of this disaster.

            Most interesting to me have been the messages from ex-UNITE/HERE folks chiding me for being too easy on John Wilhelm and protective of Carl Lechow, the long time organizing director for HERE.  In my earlier piece I assumed that Wilhelm and Lechow were distracted and the pink sheeting was an aberration and the “one-on-one’s” simply out of control.  These folks believed they both knew and encouraged these kinds of practices.  It is so contrary to my experience with either of these brothers, that I simply can’t believe it, so I won’t, but neither have I have wanted to really believe the Synanon period of the farmworkers until at this point there seems no way to deny its existence and impact.

            The best news shared with me on the trail was the rumors that there may finally be a real resolution and a true peace in this inhospitable conflict between SEIU and UNITE/HERE.  The architect of this potential settlement seems to have been Joe Hanson, president of the UFCW, who from what several people shared with me, has been indefatigable in trying to keep front doors, back doors, and all channels open in pursuit of an agreement.  What both parties are reviewing now was described as a “tough, but fair” settlement with each side having to eat some good portions of crow and a fair division of units and assets.  All of which is dandy for the accountants, but most importantly in my view I also heard that there would be real clarity and a complete understanding on organizing jurisdiction and that would be huge. 

            The only happy ending to this tawdry episode would be a real agreement on jurisdiction that once again paves the way for unions that have been committed to organizing, having their sights clearly trained on real targets and the objective of building mass organization among hospitality and other low wage service workers who desperately demand their own organizations and the right to fight for a better future at their workplaces.  To me it all seems to come down to whether or not President Wilhelm wants to keep fighting or to have peace and get back to organizing, since he has had the strongest cards in his hand throughout this mess.  John Wilhelm has been a seminal organizer and leader for hospitality workers in our time.  I hope he sees a way to be a leader here in binding the wounds of our crippled labor movement.