Catherwood LibraryILR School

Launching a major campaign against retail giant Wal-Mart Inc., the American labor movement was joined today by religious leaders and women’s rights activists in protests at 400 Wal-Mart stores across the country. The campaign is being funded and led in large part by the United Food and Commercial Workers union (see WIT for Nov. 8, 2002), whose many members in the heavily unionized supermarket industry are threatened by Wal-Mart’s recent entry into the sector with its combination grocery/discount store super centers. Not only does Wal-Mart pay low wages and provide often-unaffordable health insurance unions and their allies assert, it also depresses local economies by forcing other employers to lower wages and benefits to compete (see WIT for Oct. 25, 2002), and has a poor record on discrimination and harassment.