MONTREAL - Denying it wants to bust the union, Wal-Mart announced Wednesday it will close a Quebec store whose employees were negotiating to become the first ever to establish a union contract from the world's biggest retailer.

Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Andrew Pelletier said that anyone who assumes the decision was made as an attempt to bust the union "doesn't understand what went on over the past few months. "This store could easily have closed months ago and we didn't do that. We made a determination we were going to bargain in good faith."

The union promised to fight the move by the retailer.

The store, which will close in May, is located in Saguenay, about 250 kilometres north of Quebec City. Nearly 200 employees received union accreditation last summer, making it the chain's only unionized outlet at the time.

Union leaders rejected Wal-Mart's stated reasons for closing the store.

"Wal-Mart has fired these workers not because the store was losing money but because the workers exercised their right to join a union," Michael J. Fraser, national director of United Food & Commercial Workers Canada, said in a written statement. "Once again, Wal-Mart has decided it is above the law and that the only rules that count are their rules."

Pelletier said the company and the union had been trying since last October to reach a collective agreement that would allow the store to continue operating. Last week, the union asked Quebec labour officials to appoint a mediator, saying negotiations had reached an impasse.

"Last week, the union ended the collective-bargaining phase of the process and applied for first-contract arbitration," Pelletier said.

"In doing that, they basically acknowledged that the two sides were not going to reach an agreement. First-contract arbitration, within the context of Quebec, means a contract would ultimately be imposed on to the store."

Pelletier said the union's demands on scheduling and employee status would have required the hiring of at least 30 new people and resulted in extra work hours.

"Some of the union's demands failed to appreciate the fragile condition of the Jonquiere (Saguenay) store. The store is already well-staffed and has been struggling economically.

"It's a business decision, it's an economic-viability issue ultimately, but it's been exacerbated through added pressures."

The union representing the workers said it would further discuss the matter at a news conference Friday.

But Jean-Marc Crevier, a Quebec Federation of Labour spokesman in the region, called the announcement a "very big blow."

"I'm trying to think of what the employees are going through," Crevier said. "I've got goosebumps just thinking of it. It's sad."

A union spokesman in British Columbia said he didn't think Wal-Mart's decision will have any impact on unionization efforts in that province.

"They're looking for a chilling effect, obviously, but we're a separate jurisdiction out here and we're going to carry on with our efforts to organize Wal-Marts," Andy Newfeld said in an interview.

Claudia Tremblay, a cashier at the Quebec store, said many employees burst into tears when managers told them about the news Wednesday morning.

"Many people cried, including myself," Tremblay, 29, said in an interview.

"I'm a mother of two children and I'm separated from my husband. It's very difficult."

Tremblay said she abstained from the unionization vote, adding she was upset that her non-committal stance won't save her job.

Employees at another Wal-Mart store in St-Hyacinthe, east of Montreal, have also been accredited recently.

Wal-Mart operates two other non-unionized stores in the Saguenay-Lac St-Jean region.

The union efforts at both stores are part of a larger chess game labour organizers are waging with Wal-Mart at stores across Canada. The campaign, financed by UFCW money from both Canada and the United States, is also geared to capture the attention of workers in Wal-Mart's home country.

The closest a U.S. union has ever come to winning a battle with Wal-Mart was in 2000, at a store in Jacksonville, Texas. In that store, 11 workers - all members of the store's meatpacking department - voted to join and be represented by the UFCW.

That effort failed when Wal-Mart eliminated the job of meatcutter companywide, and moved away from in-store meatcutting to stocking only pre-wrapped meat.

Recently, some workers in the tire department of a Wal-Mart store in Colorado have sought union representation, and the U.S. National Labor Relations Board has said it intends to schedule a vote.

Wal-Mart's decision to close the Saguenay store reflects the retailer's deeply rooted aversion to unions, and its worries that organized labour had nearly established a beachhead, said Burt Flickinger III of Strategic Resource Group, a consulting firm specializing in retailing and consumer goods.

But the move could backfire for a company that has worked hard recently to counter a wave of bad publicity and portray itself as a generous employer, he said.

"They're trying to snuff it out but it may be self-defeating," Flickinger said. "The store closing may potentially catalyze the combination of the government (officials in Canada), organized labour and consumers working together against Wal-Mart."

Wal-Mart's world headquarters are based in Arkansas. Its Canadian division, whose head office is in Mississauga, Ont., operates 256 stores and six Sam's Clubs across Canada with more than 70,000 employees.

© 2005 The Canadian Press

 

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