May 15 , 2000


Collateral Damage
BY JOHN PILGER
Ten years of sanctions in Iraq

Under Siege
BY ANTHONY ARNOVE
Hans von Sponeck steps down

The IMF: Kill It or Fix It?
BY G. PASCAL ZACHARY

How to Fix the IMF
BY DAVID MOBERG
First, do no harm

Water Fallout
BY JIM SHULTZ
Bolivians battle globalization

ICANN: Secret government of the Internet?
BY STEVEN HILL
The fight over who will control the Web

The Big Payback
BY SALIM MUWAKKIL
African-Americans renew the call for reparations


News & Views

Editorial
BY JASON VEST
Capital crimes

Appall-O-Meter
BY DAVID FUTRELLE

A Terry Laban Cartoon

No Justice for Janitors
BY DAVID BACON
L.A. workers take the first step toward a nationwide strike

Wal-Martyrs
BY KARI LYDERSEN
Unionizing means job cuts at the world's largest retailer

Fishy Business
BY JEFF SHAW
Washington State is failing to protect endangered salmon

Wasted
BY JEFF ST. CLAIR
Russia moves ahead with shady nuclear scheme

Profile
BY DAVID MOBERG
Luis Alfonso Velasquez: Wanted man


Culture

The Culture Vultures
BY LAURA BRAHM
BOOKS: Art as instrument of foreign policy

Left in the Dust
BY TED KLEINE
BOOKS: A HIstory of the Small & the Invisible

Queer Godfather
BY DOUG IRELAND
BOOKS: Martin Duberman, intellectual

No Jacket Required
BY JOSHUA ROTHKOPF
FILM: American Psycho

Rememberance of Things Trashed
BY CALEB MASON

 

Wal-Martyrs

By Kari Lydersen

With $5.6 billion a year in profits and thousands of stores mushrooming around the country, Wal-Mart has become notorious for its union-busting tactics. Maurice Miller, a meat cutter at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Jacksonville, Texas, got a first-hand taste of the company's anti-union vitriol when he and six other meat cutters voted to become members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 540 on February 17.

Starting with meat cutters, the UFCW wants to unionize the 1 million Wat-Mart employees across the country.
Credit: UFCW

Several days after the vote, Wal-Mart gave Miller and thousands of other meat cutters and meat wrappers around the country some surprising news: The company is replacing meat-cutting with prepackaged, case-ready meat at 180 of its Supercenter stores in six states starting in May. Eventually, all 700 Supercenter stores nationwide will make this change. Wal-Mart says this switch has been in the works for years, and promises that the meat cutters all will be reassigned to different jobs. "Wal-Mart is going case-ready for one reason," says company spokeswoman Jessica Moser, "it's the highest quality you can provide customers today."

But workers call the timing of the announcement a calculated anti-union move. Miller says workers hadn't heard anything about the switch until the vote - the store even had recently purchased thousands of dollars worth of new meat-cutting equipment. While it's true workers won't lose their jobs, he said, they are worried about switches in their duties, hours and wages.

"This is an intimidation tactic," says UFCW spokeswoman Jill Cashen. "Basically they're trying to frighten thousands of other workers around the country away from unionizing. They're showing them that if you vote to unionize, your department is cut."

 

 


In These Times © 2000
Vol. 24, No. 12