Via The Wall Street Journal we learn that Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, is feeling anxious. It seems that the company is afraid that Barack Obama is likely to be elected the next president. In fact, it's so spooked about the prospect that it's been summoning store managers to meetings in an attempt to scare them about the ramifications of a Democratic administration. The terrifying consequence? If Obama (who supports the Employee Free Choice Act) wins, Wal-Mart employees might unionize.
The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees who to vote for in November, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.
Our message is that when the world's largest economy has labor laws that are so weak that it is unable to prevent the world's largest corporation from violating workers' rights to organize, it is troubling.
"This is a much broader issue that Wal-Mart, but I think the battle to engage Wal-Mart and for them to examine their own corporate values and what their policies and approaches are to their workers and how they are going to be good corporate citizens, I think, is absolutely vital."
Obama said Costco, a membership warehouse store similar to Wal-Mart's Sam's Club chain, pays its workers more and provides health insurance for more of its workforce than Wal-Mart does.
"If Costco can do that, it means Wal-Mart can do it. And if Wal-Mart does it, then what we're going to see is other companies recognizing that they have some obligations not only to their shareholders but also to their stakeholders, and that's workers and communities in which they're located."
"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.

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