Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has used a myriad of tactics, including some that are illegal, to hinder the ability of its workers to form labor unions, a human rights group said in a report to be released on Tuesday.
According to Human Rights Watch, the world's largest retailer has restricted the dissemination and discussion of pro-union views, threatened to withhold benefits from workers who organize, interrogated workers about their union sympathies and sent managers to eavesdrop on employee conversations. ...
Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said the Human Rights Watch report is based on "unsubstantiated allegations"... (more)
From the report...
"Wal-Mart has also used several illegal techniques to gather information about union activity while simultaneously pressuring workers to stop organizing. The company has coercively interrogated workers about their and their co-workers’ union sympathies through direct and often hostile questioning and sent managers to eavesdrop on discussions among employees in a proposed bargaining unit. According to former workers and managers fromWal-Mart’s Kingman, Arizona, store, Wal-Mart has also monitored union security cameras on areas where union organizing is most active.15 These chilling effect on workers’ willingness to organize.
Terry Daly, a former loss prevention worker charged with preventing shoplifting at the Kingman, Mart, who was ambivalent about union formation, explained to Human Rights Watch that drive at his store:
"In loss prevention, we were to monitor any activity that we thought might be organized in certain areas. I was told with the cameras that we had to make shots more available, monitor a better area so we could see any activity going on that might be unusual."
He added that, in particular, they were supposed to focus on union leader Brad Jones. “[We were to] monitor cameras and report back what we saw. We needed to find a reason to fire Brad.” 16
15 See below, “VII. Freedom of Association at Wal-Mart: Anti-Union Tactics Deemed Illegal Under US Law,” subsection “Union Activity Surveillance.” The NLRB never addressed the allegations of camera-based surveillance at the Kingman store, however.
16 Human Rights Watch interview with Terry Daly, former Wal-Mart loss prevention worker, Kingman, Arizona, March 17, 2005.
