During the election last November, The Wall Street Journal reported that WalMart managers ran meetings to push their political agenda on their workers while acting as though they were remaining neutral. They would say “I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill (the Employee Free Choice Act) will pass and you won’t have a vote on whether you want a union.” WalMart spokesperson David Tovar said that “They believe the Employee Free Choice Act is a bad bill and they have been on record as opposing it for some time.” Tovar also stated that, this is the reason they feel it was important to educate their workers about the bill. One problem with this is that they were not educating their workers accurately on what the Employee Free Choice Act will do. It will not stop workers from having a say in if they want a union or not, In fact it should discourage the union busting campaigns that many companies like WalMart put into place to discourage unions. The Employee Free Choice Act will give workers the choice to decide how to form a union, instead of leaving this decision in the hands of the corporations. 

This is where WalMart and many other businesses are presenting inaccurate information to their employees, to further their own agenda, and keep unions out of their work places.  WalMart was quoted in another article in the New York Times as saying that they will not support any legislation that would eliminate the freedom to have a secret ballot. Either WalMart doesn’t understand the Employee Free Choice Act or they are being intentionally deceitful because they believe that unionizing would disrupt the environment they have created, one that exploits their workers, doesn’t provide adequate health coverage and benefits and demands overtime without proper pay. They are right, this would disrupt what they have created, but the question we need to ask ourselves is, if keeping this dysfunctional system in place for workers in many different jobs all around the country is in violation of human rights.

On January 13th union leaders from 45 different countries met with representatives of the United States union organizations, to show their support for the Employee Free Choice Act. The International Trade Union Confederation including 300 unions in 155 countries who said that they believe “The Freedom to form a union and bargain for better wages and benefits is a basic human right, one that needs to be protected in every country.” Leaders of unions in countries around the world find it hard to believe that workers in the United States are still restricted from easily bargaining for their rights. They say “it is about the respect of internationally recognized human rights, nothing more nothing less.”  Labor organizations say that if the Employee Free Choice Act passes in the coming months they hope to unionize up to 100 WalMarts which might add 30,000 new union members. Union membership has dropped from 40 percent of private sector workers to just 7.5 percent in only a century. Union leaders believe that increasing the amount of union members will help to give the working class wages and benefits that will help them to provide for themselves and their families once again.

A common idea about the Employee Free Choice Act is that if more businesses were to unionize, the economy would get worse than it is right now. John Engler, the president of the national association of manufacturers said that if WalMart’s 1.4 million employees were to unionize, $500 million additional union dues would be collected each year. They believe that these union dues would them be used to support democratic causes and candidates. I think that instead, the additional union dues would be put towards policies that serve the workers that they represent, whether those are democratic or republican policies. The goal of unions is to advocate for the rights of workers, so that they can support their families. I believe that these corporations should not worry about unions hurting the economy when many of these corporations and banks are the ones receiving the government bail outs. Corporations are spending $200 million lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act, while a coalition of many different unions are spending $3 million total to get the word out. Much of the money, time and efforts that corporations could be using to improve wages, benefits and working conditions are being used to campaign against legislation that would do just that. It is also interesting to note that organizations campaigning for the Employee Free Choice Act disclose all of the information for who is funding the campaign while the opposition, organizations like Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and the Workforce Fairness Institute  do not.

While many corporations, WalMart being one of them will fight till the end to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act but I believe that businesses should take their lead from people like Timothy H. Smith, Senior Vice President of Walden Asset Management. He said “It is vitally important to celebrate and publicize positive partnerships between companies and their employees. These partnerships signify meaningful work, work-family balance, mutual respect, decent wages, and benefits….In the future, the responsible workplace needs to be a hallmark of U.S. business both at home and abroad.”