Say Anything Blog

I’m not sure why this is controversial:

Wal-Mart spokesman Dave Tovar told The Associated Press that the company did discuss the bill with its employees, including what it sees as the negative impact, and noted that the company’s stand on the legislation is no secret.

“We believe the Employee Free Choice Act is a bad bill and we have been on the record as opposed to it,” he said.

But he said the company wasn’t advocating that its employees vote against backers of the legislation.

“If anyone representing Wal-Mart gave the impression… they are wrong and acting without approval,” said Tovar. In fact, he said that Wal-Mart has been working with both Republicans and Democrats.

First, it’s worth nothing that the horribly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” (which is legislation that would prevent workers from keeping their preference as to whether or not to unionize a secret so that they can be harassed by the unions) is actively supported by every union in the country.  So the idea that Wal-Mart, one of the unions’ biggest targets, would want to give its side of the issue to its employees and encourage them not to support the bill or the people who support the bill isn’t terribly surprising.

You can agree or disagree with Wal-Mart on the issue (I agree with them), but the company has just as much of a right to oppose the bill as the unions have a right to support it.

As for telling employees who to vote for, seems to me that if Wal-Mart wants to run campaigns in its stores against certain politicians (or even for others) that, again, is their right.  You know, “free speech” and all that.  Typically getting entangled in politics to that degree isn’t a good thing for a company, but on the flip side making bad business decisions isn’t against the law.

If the employees don’t like the campaigning they can work somewhere else.  If customers don’t like it, they can shop somewhere else.

I think the real problem here, as is the case with most criticism with Wal-Mart, is that the unions don’t like what Wal-Mart is doing.  The unions are upset that the retail giant is opposing their efforts to remove free choice from the labor organization and the unions don’t like it.