Aug 07, 2008
Nothing says “All Together Now” like workers banding together to collectively bargain for better working conditions. The U.S. has over a hundred years’ proud history of workers struggling to win unionized representation. Still, the percentage of unionized workers in the private sector has plummeted from over 16 percent in 1983 to under eight percent today. The fact that wealth has become increasingly—obscenely— concentrated in the hands of the few over that same quarter century is no coincidence.
The nation’s largest private employer, Wal-Mart, whose family ownership contains some of the richest people in the world, has worked hard to keep unions out. With a Democratic victory threatened in November, Wal-Mart is particularly frightened of the Employee Free Choice Act (House version is H.R. 800,; Senate version is S. 1041). This bill, which has passed in the House and is now under consideration in the Senate, restores some of the balance of power to workers in their struggle to form unions. That balance has been heavily shifted to management during the past several administrations. Wal-Mart has recently begun ramping up their opposition to this bill, with a campaign to intimidate their workers.
Wal-Mart Watch, an organization “working to make Wal-Mart a better employer, neighbor, and corporate citizen,” is trumpeting a recent page one article in the online Wall Street Journal, about Wal-Mart’s activities, and organizing a petition to tell Wal-Mart to stop intimidating its workers. You can read the WSJ article and sign the petition at the URL below.
Copyright © 2008 All Together Now.