Known for squelching past employee unionization efforts, Wal-Mart is striking back against organizations that back current strike and picketing actions at its stores. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. filed an unfair labor practice charge against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Nov. 16, just one week before what is planned to be the largest-ever organized action against the company—a worker strike on the Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. Wal-Mart asked the National Labor Relations Board to stop what it calls unlawful attempts by the UFCW to disrupt its business.
“We are taking this action now because we cannot allow the UFCW to continue to intentionally seek to create an environment that could directly and adversely impact our customers and associates,” Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar told Reuters. “If they do, they will be held accountable.”
Current and former Wal-Mart employees have held protests and rallies outside of Wal-Mart stores nationwide, organized primarily by groups OUR Wal-Mart and Making Change at Wal-Mart. The groups, which represent thousands of workers, are affiliates of the UFCW. In fact, according to the Labor Department, OUR Wal-Mart was listed as a subsidiary of the UFCW in 2011. The Wal-Mart employees in each group are pushing for better wages, benefits and working conditions.
The UFCW has no plans to back down from the world’s largest retailer.
“Wal-Mart is grasping at straws,” UFCW Communications Director Jill Cashen told Reuters. “There’s nothing in the law that gives an employer the right to silence workers and citizens.”
Cashen may not be 100 percent correct in her assertions, however. Generally, when the NLRB receives a charge, it takes about six weeks to investigate, and sometimes resolves the issue without issuing a complaint. But according to agency spokesman Tony Wagner, some inquiries can be expedited under certain criteria. Wal-Mart is hoping to meet those criteria.
UFCW-sponsored activities “have caused disruptions to Wal-Mart’s business, resulted in misinformation being shared publicly about our company, and created an uncomfortable environment and undue stress on Wal-Mart’s customers, includes families with children,” attorney Steven Wheeless wrote in a letter on behalf of Wal-Mart to UFCW assistant general counsel Deborah Gaydos.
The letter also cites the National Labor Relations Act, which requires a petition be filed in order to picket more than 30 days. Furthermore, under the NLRA, the NLRB must seek a federal court injunction to halt such activity. Wal-Mart also intends to hold the UFCW accountable for any injury or property damage should it occur as a result of protest actions by it, OUR Wal-Mart or any other affiliates.
“We are prepared to and will take all appropriate legal actions to enforce our property rights, protect our business, and ensure the safety of our customers and associates, on Black Friday and in the future,” Wheeless wrote in the letter to Gaydos.
