A couple of months ago it was reported that an arbitrator had imposed a collective agreement covering the eight employees in a tire-and-lube garage at a Wal-Mart store in Gatineau, Quebec. Guess what just happened? Go on, guess.
Wal-Mart is closing a tire-and-lube garage in Gatineau where workers won a major victory last August when a Quebec arbitrator imposed a collective agreement on the company.
In the original article a Wal-Mart spokesthingy was quoted as saying that a collective agreement was incompatible with Wal-Mart's way of doing business. Oddly enough, I've found that Wal-Mart is incompatible with my money. Funny how that works out, eh?
Hat-tip to Just Another Willy Loman.
"There they go again" ...
However, aren't they "compatible" with being charged according to Québec's labor laws (i.e. it is unlawful to close a business because employees have unionized)?
À suivre ...
If they're charged, I'm betting they'd just settle for a fine and call it a day. The fine is pocket change to them.
really? i thought the law could compell Wal-mart to pay up to 5 yrs lost wages to unlawfully "laid-off" unionized employees? I could be wrong...
That doesn't sound like pocket change for one store, although for the whole chain of course it would be... That's if the max was levied
i thought the law could compell Wal-mart to pay up to 5 yrs lost wages to unlawfully "laid-off" unionized employees?
Ooooh. I didn't realize that. But still, Wal-Mart would probably consider it a bargain compared to encouraging unions to keep hammering at them in other jurisdictions too. And they'd probably then write Quebec off as far as any new ventures are concerned and be quick to close the existing ones if and when profitability suffered.
So, potentially win-win. If they did indeed compel Wal-mart to do that, then the workers get a decent enough stack o' money that they can pretty surely find another job before it runs out and have some left over. And Quebec keeps Wal-mart from encroaching further on the province.
'Course, what we *ought* to do in such circumstances is if they're shutting down illegally to block unionization, expropriate the place and hand it over to the workers.
The Jonquiere case is going to the Supreme Court:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=bc6f05c8-c597-472b-8740-ffa2c180d3a0
Walmart might yet get a true slapdown.
Just remember, guys, five years' wages at WalMart isn't much to live on.