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How Wal Mart Deals With Union Organizing


With the recent vote by Amazon workers that decided not to form a union (Amazon Workers Say NO To a Union), Wal Mart is one of the big companies that has also been able to resist their employees forming a union. 

With Wal Mart's ability to keep unions out, questions have arisen about how they have been able to do it.  Recently, slides that Wal Mart used to educate its management on how to remain union free were leaked:  Wal Mart Slides.  An internal memo (Wal Mart Memo) that Wal Mart used to advise its managers on how to deal with employees who walked out also created controversy.  When these slides and memo were released, many pro union groups and employees complained that the tactics used by Wal Mart were illegal and "violated the spirit of the law."  While the ways that Wal Mart has been able to keep unions out might appear to be heavy handed and in violation of NLRB rules, it does not appear that anything that has been done "violated the spirit of the law."  Rather, it seems like Wal Mart has developed an effective strategy that other companies could adopt when dealing with potential union organizing.

With such a big company like Wal Mart and the number of employees it employs, it is likely that union organizing efforts will continue.  This will be an interesting one to keep an eye on, especially if the continued "pro union tilt" NLRB gets more involved going forward.


Thanks to HR Capitalist for additional information on the topic.

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