No one denies that attempts at unionizing some of the biggest American employers in the private sector — Walmart, Amazon and Starbucks — can be hazardous to one’s job. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the union membership rate of private-sector workers was just 6.3 percent in 2020, down from 6.6 percent last year and from 6.9 percent in 2011. Labor specialists cited several reasons for the continuing steep decline in private sector union membership. Among the factors were new laws that rolled back the power of unions in Wisconsin, Indiana and other states, the continued expansion by manufacturers like Boeing and Volkswagen in nonunion states and the growth of sectors like retail and restaurants, where unions still have little presence. Among those larger employers noted above, there is also the fact that companies engage in numerous anti-union initiatives to persuade or obviously prevent their workers from organizing at the plant, warehouse or local outlet levels.
Earlier in the past two decades, it was at Walmart in the U.S. and Canada that clearly intimidated its so-called “associates” from organizing at the local level. For example, in April 2005, Walmart simply closed it store in Jonquière, Quebec, when workers there attempted to organize. Nine years later the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the move was improper, illegal and contrary to section 59 of Quebec’s Labour Code and turned the case back to an arbitrator to determine the appropriate remedy. Walmart at no time told anyone that the Jonquière store intended to go out of business or that it was experiencing financial difficulties. On the contrary, from a perspective of five years, the store was performing very well and its objectives were being met. Let’s face it, the closure was a clear warning to other communities and Walmart workers of the evident consequences of attempting to organize.
In another example, in April 2021, a vote on whether to form a union at the Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, became a major labour showdown. Unfortunately, the workers voted down the union drive following pressure from Amazon management. The company’s decisive victory dealt a crushing blow to organized labour, which had hoped the time was ripe to start making inroads at Amazon. Amazon is a rich entity. Propelled in part by surging demand during the pandemic, people spent more than $610 billion U.S. on Amazon over the 12 months ending in June 2021. This is even more than that spent by people at Walmart during the same period. Amazon also added hundreds of new warehouses and hired about 500,000 workers since the start of last year, none of which are unionized.
More recently, some Starbucks Buffalo-area locations filed for a union election in late August of this year. None of the nearly 9,000 corporate-owned Starbucks locations in the country are unionized. However, a Starbucks-owned store in Canada did manage to recently organize, a first for Starbucks. Starbucks has faced union campaigns before, including an effort in 2019 in Philadelphia where the firing of two employees involved in union organizing was deemed unlawful by a labour board judge. Starbucks of course has appealed the ruling. According to union officials, Starbucks management has employed other intimidation and often subtle methods to discourage employees from organizing. The measures include holding meetings with employees in which company officials question the need for a third party to represent them.
As an apparent shortage of workers in certain private sectors due to the pandemic, unions may see an opportunity to assist in organizing workers because of the competition among employers for workers. If anything, the situation has forced many employers to improve their working conditions and raise the wages offered in order to retain workers and to recruit new workers. This is particularly the case in the retail, services and restaurant sectors. Nevertheless, the ability to organize workers in the private sector still obviously faces numerous hurtles in the U.S. Hopefully, as economies improve, current labour shortages may benefit all workers, whether unionized or not.
FROLITICKS 