Wal-Mart agrees to Quebec union's demands

CANADA - A union in St-Hyacinthe Quebec has won a 2-year agreement with Wal-Mart, a 30 cent/hour wage increase and the right to arbitration. The wage increase will essentially pay for union dues, but will allow workers to fight for more benefits and job security.

Wal-Mart says as long as the store remains profitable it sees no reason to shut it down, but that's what Wal-Mart said in 2005 when the Saguenay, Quebec store unionized

In April 2005 Wal-Mart shut down its store in Saguenay, Que. and approx. two-hundred workers lost their jobs. At the time Wal-Mart said the store wasn’t profitable, but later investigations found evidence that profits were actually up.

So in other words... Wal-Mart lied about their profit margins just to get rid of the union.

Wal-Mart is a staunchly anti-union corporation and is the world's largest public corporation, making $404.16 billion USD in 2008 with operating expenditures of approx. $31 billion USD. Wal-Mart is so rich and profitable it could pay its workers 10 times what it currently pays its staff, and would still be making about $100 billion in profits per year.

Wal-Mart is also widely criticized for destroying small communities by wiping out smaller businesses, paying their workers pennies in comparison and flushing local economies down the drain, ultimately ending in a ghost town where the only store left is Wal-Mart. Some towns and cities have even passed laws forbidding the opening of big-box-department stores, forcing Wal-Mart to open their stores outside of the city limits. Wal-Mart is also criticized because it sells products primarily made in China or other Asian countries, and the majority of Wal-Mart's investors are non-Americans.

See Also:
Wal-Mart Sweatshops around the Globe