030615 Wal-Mart Ordered to Recognize Meat Cutters UnionJune 19, 2003Jacksonville, TX - A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has ordered Wal- Mart to recognize a meat-cutters union that formed at the company's Jacksonville store three years ago, union leaders say. After seven of the 10 butchers at the store voted in 2000 to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced it was closing its meat-cutting departments in favor of prepackaged meat. The butchers' vote marked the only union success at a Wal-Mart store. In recent months, organized labor has escalated efforts to unionize Wal-Mart stores after five years of failing to even dent the world's largest retailer's armor. Judge Keltner Locke ordered Wal-Mart to recognize UFCW Local 540 as the bargaining representative for the meat cutters and to restore the department to its prior structure, the union said. "This is a historic decision — the first bargaining order issued against Wal-Mart in the United States," Local 540 President Johnny Rodriguez said in a statement. "It is a victory for all Wal-Mart workers who are fighting for a voice at work." But Wal-Mart downplayed the ruling, describing it as "limited." "Wal-Mart has consistently contended that the union should never have been certified in Jacksonville because the election result was improperly influenced by union misconduct and because the bargaining unit requested was improperly narrow," the company said in a release. "This portion of the ruling will be appealed." Wal-Mart said the same judge ruled in the company's favor in two other cases, including validating election results in which associates in Palestine, Texas, voted against UFCW representation.
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