(Source: Huffington Post, June 5, 2013)
Walmart’s success in keeping its American workforce entirely nonunion is, of course, well documented — so much so that observers of the company’s chronic labor strife almost take it for granted. But even in the context of a long national decline in union membership among American workers, it is staggering that the country’s largest employer, and one of its stingiest, has remained union free.
While Walmart contends that its employees have no use for union representation, it stretches credulity beyond the breaking point to think that no group of workers at any of the company’s more than 4,000 U.S. stores would choose to organize themselves into a bargaining unit. After all, Walmart has become almost as famous for its low wages and paltry health benefits as it is for its low prices. And despite the weakened position of unions in the U.S. economy, unionized workers still enjoy wages that are 13.6 percent higher on average than those of their nonunion counterparts. Likewise, unionized workers are 28.2 percent more likely to be covered by employer-provided health insurance and 53.9 percent more likely to have employer-provided pensions.
Full story: Huffington Post