Friday, August 1, 2008

Wal-Mart loses its shit over election

One of the major myths in this big people world that we live in is that corporations don't support partisan candidates. But they do. It's legal for corporations to donate to political campaigns. But when companies urge hourly employees to vote a certain way, they're on shaky ground.

And with Wal-Mart fearing it won't get its way in the upcoming election, the retail chain is utterly losing its cool.

Wal-Mart is marshaling its store managers and department supervisors all over America to warn workers about those big, mean Democrats. Wal-Mart is worried that the Democrats will change federal law to make it easier for workers to (gasp!) unionize.

They're trying to brainwash workers into thinking being able to unionize is a bad thing? I know this is the same store chain that forces new employees to watch an anti-union propaganda film, but this latest story proves just how out of touch Wal-Mart is.

Lately, thousands of Wal-Mart department heads and managers have been required to attend mandatory meetings where the corporate big shots attack unions and the Democrats. The meetings do nothing short of tell people how to vote.

Workers have a human right to organize. Wal-Mart has no right to block employees from forming a union. In fact, it's illegal under federal law to fire someone for trying to unionize. But Wal-Mart does it anyway: The company just got busted for firing a pro-union employee in Arizona and trying to freeze pay raises of other pro-union workers.

In fact, it's also illegal for corporations to tell hourly employees (such as the department heads) which political candidates they should vote for. To put it bluntly, Wal-Mart is breaking this law too.

I'd like to see a law barring corporations from forcing employees to attend mandatory anti-union briefings. Company big shots may spew all the anti-worker propaganda they desire, but they have no right to a captive audience.

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121755649066303381.html)

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