US: Wal-Mart Denies Workers Basic Rights(Human Rights Watch)

[IChing]

Source: Human Rights Watch

(Washington, DC, May 1, 2007) – Wal-Mart’s relentless exploitation of weak US labor laws thwarts union formation and violates the rights of its US workers, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

Wal-Mart workers have virtually no chance to organize because they’re up against unfair US labor laws and a giant company that will do just about anything to keep unions out. That one-two punch devastates workers’ right to form and join unions.
Carol Pier, senior researcher on labor rights and trade at Human Rights Watch



In the 210-page report, “Discounting Rights: Wal-Mart’s Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association,” Human Rights Watch found that while many American companies use weak US laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus. Many of its anti-union tactics are lawful in the United States, though they combine to undermine workers’ rights. Others run afoul of soft US laws.

“Wal-Mart workers have virtually no chance to organize because they’re up against unfair US labor laws and a giant company that will do just about anything to keep unions out,” said Carol Pier, senior researcher on labor rights and trade for Human Rights Watch. “That one-two punch devastates workers’ right to form and join unions.”


Read more: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/01/usdom15797.htm

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[ClintonTyree]

1. I only wish....

the American public knew and understood that every time they shop at Wal*Mart to save a few dollars that THEY'RE responsible for American jobs being exported abroad.

Heck, I only wish the American public KNEW and UNDERSTOOD a lot of things! Oh, wait......American Idol is on soon. Gotta' run. :sarcasm:

[LostinVA]

2. Uh oh

I agree with you 100%, and shop places that coast em much more, but many on here do NOT agree with you on this.

This may wind up being a :popcorn:-worthy thread.

[gratuitous]

3. I agree

And I would urge everyone who has a choice to choose not to shop at Wal-Mart. There are geographic and economic realities that some people have to contend with that practically forces patronizing Wal-Mart, but if there's any reasonable alternative, I urge folks not to go to Wal-Mart.

This is an important economic and social justice issue, and I hope folks don't lightly make the decision to shop at Wal-Mart.

[MrPrax]

4. Strange understanding...

of human rights.

Human rights are not generally conditional on whether or not workers voluntarily agreed to purchase the services of private groups who are contracted to negotiation legal devices called collective agreements.

Moreover Human Rights Watch has taken the assumption that these said rights are better protected, not through actual legislation enforced by democratic societies to aid in the rights of all workers, but through a system ultimately based on private agreements that was at one time viewed as the whole fucking reason for human rights, universal suffrage, employment standards, etc.

In short, the history has more than proven that simply because you sign a piece of paper (Constitution) and give a designated 'agent' (government) money based on perhaps something called a Rand formula (taxation) that your human rights are somehow protected? Is this Golden Triangle of Rights working?

Human Rights Watch use this ideological model for everything in the same way the Cato Institute uses it. Does Human Rights Watch really see no problem in the overall destructive nature of Wal-Mart to the US economy that really goes beyond the handful of unionist that generally don't oppose Wal-Mart, but only oppose the fact the boss is rich and he should 'agree' to give more money to his employees?

Are they saying if they paid those handful of employees in the general economy more, Wal-Mart then should get a stamp of approval by American workers and citizens? Not bloody likely...

So what then, will the trade unions allow themselves to continued to be used as a wedge against the Left to do what they generally done on the Left; is attack other workers who organize alternative models, call them names and boast arrogantly of their success in improving a company's human resources department. Not this working-class socialist ...

Wal-Mart's whole 'reason' to be in business is to take advantage of the low wages their immiseration and destruction of the human rights of 'non Wal-Mart workers' has created. MickeyD, Wal-Mart etc are models forged through the trial and error of confronting organized labour and successfully redeploying models that are entirely resistant to wage increases.

That's why capitalists love that model and developed it globally through the aftermath of World War Two. Wages in the modern age are generally dictated through central banks overall through the devastation of 'inflation' controls that allow individual enterprise to use 'wage decrease' structures purely for the purpose of internal human resource functions that no longer have the same detrimental effect to the economy that things like strike actions in the old days tended to generally do.

Ergo if the billionaires family of Sam Waterson actually gave real money, this will produce inflation in the system that is THEN adjusted down on the backs of all workers, other business to the benefit of monolithic and impeneratable state-regulated transnational blocks that don't even consider themselves a member of their original chartered nations.

Also given that Wal-Mart's relationship with it's employees is really akin to the old 'company store' largely because the workers are and will always be low paid, then it simply pushes the workers into a closer relationship with the employer as they use their 'wage credits' to purchase goods at prices set by Wal-Mart which is the same price they give to basically anyone. Ergo the illusion of gain.

Base protection of human rights requires the alteration of the current rules because they artificially enhance the value of some 'property' at the expense of 'other' property. Trade unions are not successful anymore, not because capital is a hard-ass, but because people haven't been convinced that simply having yet another fancy piece of paper telling them how they have rights has been largely a wasted exercise for oppressed workers. Moreover, they understand that the union model, since it hasn't generally improved the lives of workers lately, are simply purchased blocks of political power that are ineffectively placed as political mirrors to the equivalent Boss blocks of political power.

Both of these groups share the same economic idea that American workers are too expensive. One side simply avoids them and goes offshore, the other simply acts as a tunnel canary for the Boss when the fumes of dissent and anger from his outsourcing become socially and economically destructive.

The Boss hasn't changed his opinion in spite of 400 hundred years of arguing; the centrists and their unions have only managed to successfully negotiate limits to the violence employed by the Tyrants that kill and exploit for money, guns and power.

My god, if something isn't done -- then this whole issue simply disappears as Wal-Mart workers will in the future will be lavishly compensated and envied because they have 'lines of credit' that enables them to 'consistently' buy food, shelter and clothing. The unions will be sitting there like everyone else; twirling their fingers, fretting about history, but continuing to have employers privately tax their employees to their immediate benefit so they can 'grift' the political system to make sure this arrangement continues.

[Heidi]

5. Kick.

:kick:

[Omaha Steve]

6. Report Assails Wal-Mart Over Unions

Source: N Y TIMES

Report Assails Wal-Mart Over Unions


By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: May 1, 2007

In its first study of how an American company treats its workers, Human Rights Watch asserted yesterday that Wal-Mart’s aggressive efforts to keep out labor unions often violated federal law and infringed on its workers’ rights.

Human Rights Watch, which typically focuses on rights violations in Burundi, North Korea or other foreign countries, said that when Wal-Mart stores faced unionization drives, the company often broke the law by, for example, eavesdropping on workers, training surveillance cameras on them and firing those who favored unions.

“While many American companies use weak U.S. laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus,” the human rights group wrote.

Wal-Mart Stores has more than 1.3 million workers at its nearly 4,000 stores in the United States, and none of its workers belong to a union.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/business/01labor.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

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Be sure to read the full story. Everybody needs to be talking about this.