BOSTON — The National Labor Relations Board is investigating allegations that Wal-Mart improperly influenced a union vote last month at a Loveland, Colo., supercenter.
Workers at the Tire & Lube Express on Feb. 25 voted 17 to 1 against representation by the Union of Food and Commercial Workers. The UFCW Local 7 charged that Wal-Mart bullied workers and brought in sympathetic staffers from other stores to dilute the vote.
Wal-Mart said in a statement that the accusations were “simply not true.”
The NLRB has set a hearing on the matter for March 25.
The inquiry is the latest chapter in a battle between Wal-Mart and the UFCW, which has been trying to organize the retailer’s 1.6 million member workforce for years. Wal-Mart announced last month that it would close a store in Jonquiere, Quebec, after workers voted in favor of UFCW representation.
“As soon as there is a whiff of a union, they have a team of union busters they fly out from the home office in Bentonville [Ark.],” said UFCW Local 7 spokesman Dave Minshall. “They hammer on these people day and night. There are antiunion videos, procorporate videos and all of a sudden the [store] manager is your friend.”
The UFCW has made Wal-Mart its top target for organizing activity, although it has never successfully organized a Wal-Mart store. Six Wal-Mart Tire & Lube Express operations have had workers sign union cards seeking a vote, but only two votes have been conducted. The other vote, held last month in a store in New Castle, Pa., was unanimously defeated.