(Reuters circulated the following story by Martin Croteau on February 10.)
QUEBEC CITY — Unions for thousands workers in northern Quebec have urged a boycott of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT – news) over its plans to close a store that last year became North America’s first unionized Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart Canada, the Canadian unit of the Bentonville, Arkansas company that is world’s biggest retailer, plans to close its store in Jonquiere, Quebec, on May 6, laying off 190 workers.
Workers at the store, about 215 kilometers (130 miles) northeast of Quebec City, obtained union certification six months ago and were in talks with Wal-Mart on their first contract. Negotiations bogged down earlier this month, and the union turned to the Quebec government for arbitration.
Wal-Mart Canada said the application for arbitration indicated the two sides were not likely to deal a deal.
Officials for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, a branch of the Quebec Federation of Labour said they may file a complaint with the government’s labor relations board and union leaders at local metals and forest products companies said they deplored Wal-Mart’s decision.
The Quebec Federation of Labour is the largest union group in Quebec,
Local mayor Jean Tremblay accused Wal-Mart of being a “bad corporate citizen.”
“There are labor rules that everybody follows in Quebec. Other large-surface retailers follow them as well,” he said.
“I’m disappointed that Wal-Mart decided to shut down the store instead of negotiating an agreement.”
The company has resisted union attempts to organize workers at its 1,353 U.S. Wal-Mart stores. It also operates 1,713 Supercenters and 551 Sam’s Clubs in the United States.
Unions for other big employers in the Saguenay region also called for a boycott of the three Wal-Mart stores in the area.
“We ask you not to go there anymore. They kill jobs, small stores, they come here and have no respect for the workers,” Claude Patry, president of the National Aluminum Workers Union of Arvida, told members on Wednesday, according to Radio-Canada.
“We are going into a meeting tonight, and I plan on asking our members not to buy anything at Wal-Mart,” said Richard Cote, an official with the union at the Fjordcell pulp plant owned by Cascades Inc. (Toronto:CAS.TO – news).
The 100 workers at Fjordcell have been locked out since Nov. 1 over stalled contract talks.
Quebec is North America’s most heavily unionized jurisdiction, and more than 40 percent of its wage and salary workers belong to unions. That compares with an average 32 percent rate in Canada and 12.5 percent in the United States.
In January, another Wal-Mart Canada store in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, won union certification and said it hoped to deliver contract proposals by mid-February.
At the time, the big retailer said it was considering all options to block the certification, including legal action against the Quebec Labour Relations Commission.
The National Union of Public and General Employees, which has 340,000 members across Canada, said on Thursday it would support efforts by the United Food and Commercial Workers union to organize workers at more than a dozen of Wal-Mart’s 235 stores in Canada.