Quebec workers win union at Wal-Mart

Quebec workers win union at Wal-Mart
By G. Dunkel

http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/walmart0819.php

It looks like Wal-Mart will have to start bargaining with the union 
representing its workers in Jonquière, Quebec, Canada. Management's appeal to 
reverse this ruling, scheduled to be heard Aug. 20, is not expected to win.

Representatives of the union involved--the Quebec section of the United Food 
and Commercial Workers (French initials TUAC)--have said they also intend to 
file to represent Wal-Mart workers in Brossard before the end of the summer.

TUAC Local 503 filed for recognition in early July, and the Quebec Labor Relat 
ions Commission certified it Aug. 4. The Aug. 20 hearing will finalize the 
makeup of the bargaining unit. However, QLRC Adjudicator Jocelyne Houle has 
stated that no matter how the bargaining unit is defined, "the applicant is 
representative, as required by law."

Because Jonquière and the whole surrounding Saguenay area are economically 
depressed, it took extra courage for the workers to go up against Wal-Mart.

The local ALCAN aluminum smelter closed in February, even after the workers 
had seized it and run it successfully for over a month. The Atibi paper mill 
has shut down. Logging is in decline.

But the Saguenay area has been one of the centers of the Quebec union movement 
since early last century. Workers from the Saguenay and other isolated areas 
of Quebec knew that there were three bosses in a town--the bank, the company 
and the church--and if the workers weren't united in a union, they could be 
ground up and spit out by any of the three.

Labor law in Quebec presupposes that unions have a right to bargain over wages 
and working conditions. Other provisions make the tactics that companies like 
Wal-Mart and McDonald's usually apply elsewhere harder to use. For example, it 
is illegal for management to close a location just because it is unionized.

This is why Wal-Mart Canada spokes person Andrew Pelletier assured the Mon 
treal Gazette that the company wouldn't close any store because a union was 
present.

About 95 percent of unions in Quebec get a first contract without a labor 
conflict. The chance of that happening in Jon quière "is a good fantasy," 
Louis Bolduc, UFCW national vice-president for Que bec, predicted. "I doubt it 
will be a deal reached without a conflict."

Marie-Josée Lemieux, the president of Local 503, agrees with Bolduc. She said 
she would emphasize working conditions in her negotiations with Wal-Mart.

"This is great victory for the workers in Jonquière, and for Wal-Mart workers 
every where," said Michael J. Fraser, UFCW Canada's national director, in a 
news release.

"Wal-Mart is on the record stating they support work-place democracy," said 
Fraser. "The majority of workers in Jonquière have spoken, so we expect 
Wal-Mart to listen and get down to negotiating a first contract without delay."

Fraser went on to say: "What's happened in Quebec can happen at any Wal-Mart 
store in North America. Jonquière is only the first of more to come."

Currently outside Quebec, UFCW Canada has applications pending for Wal-Mart 
stores in Weyburn and North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and in Terrace, British 
Columbia. It just lost the vote in Thompson, Manitoba.

While Quebec might have laws making the playing ground for unions a bit more 
level, it was really the strong determination of the workers in Jon quière 
that got them their union.

Reprinted from the Aug. 18, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper

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