In the article linked below, McMaster University Professor Roy Adams reviews Canadian workers' organizing efforts to date, and highlights the importance of this struggle against Walmart's business "template" that drives down wages and working conditions around the globe.

So without further adieu, here it is (pdf only, unfortunately):

Roy Adams, "Organizing Walmart: The Canadian Campaign," JUST LABOUR Vol. 6&7, Autumn 2005 (pdf)

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If the company was forced to negotiate in Canada, it would not be a first. It already deals with unions overseas in, for example, the United Kingdom and Germany and, most recently, China. However, Canadian negotiations might reverberate throughout North America and begin to move the company away from its business model and, instead, adopt practices that are more of the industry norm. That is precisely the union’s aim but Wal-Mart has proven to be a very robust adversary.

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[ 10 December 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

Second Walmart goes union in B.C.

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Another Canadian Wal-Mart location has been certified seven months after a majority of workers at a Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express (TLE) shop in Surrey, British Columbia voted in favour of unionizing. The ballot box had been sealed pending hearings by the British Columbia Labour Relations Board (BCLRB).

The vote was originally held in September of 2005 but Wal-Mart held true to its usual pattern of litigation and delay. It took until March 3, 2006 for the BCLRB to work its way through Wal-Mart's legal challenges and authorize a count of the ballots cast by workers at two separate Wal-Mart Tire & Lube Express shops in Surrey.

The vote at one location was narrowly lost 5-7, but employees at the Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express on 88th Street in Surrey voted 7-2 in favour of joining the union.

Those workers have now been certified by the BCLRB as the newest bargaining unit of UFCW Canada (United Food and Commercial Workers Canada) Local 1518.

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