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Wal-Mart Watch to Join Efforts to Give Workers a Voice on the Job

Wal-Mart Watch, a leading critic of the nation's largest employer and architect of an independent public education campaign to expose the truth about Wal-Mart's business practices, announced today that it is joining efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that Wal-Mart's employees and other workers around the country will have the choice to form a union to advocate for better wages and benefits.

"Since 2005, Wal-Mart Watch has successfully called public attention to Wal-Mart's bad business practices. It has become clear, however, that neither concern for its workers nor its own public image will persuade Wal-Mart to do right by its employees," said Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director David Nassar. "While Wal-Mart Watch did not begin with the premise that Wal-Mart needed a union, in this economic climate and with Wal-Mart's repeated intractability, the workers of Wal-Mart need the choice and the chance to unite their voices and bargain for better wages, better benefits and fair working conditions. The Employee Free Choice Act is that chance for Wal-Mart employees and workers all around this country."

To martial all available resources toward this effort, Wal-Mart Watch is merging its operations into the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to share knowledge and expertise and best serve the efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Wal-Mart Watch will also work closely with Change to Win and United Food and Commercial Workers to make sure that Wal-Mart employees do not miss out on this opportunity to make their voices heard.

"Even in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the Walton family and the Wal-Mart shareholders are continuing to prosper. But who gets left behind time and time again? The workers," said Andy Stern, President of SEIU and founder of Wal-Mart Watch. "Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott makes about $16,000 per hour; his employees make $10.86 per hour without benefits. Lee Scott could not be more clear when he was asked about the Employee Free Choice Act and said, 'We like driving the car and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.' Well we've got news for Lee Scott: his passengers are tired of being driven into the ditch."