by Keith Richmond
GIANT US corporation Wal-Mart has shut a tyre centre it owns after workers voted to join a trade union.
Wal-Mart Canada closed Tyre and Lube Express – a tyre and oil change garage in Gatineau, Quebec – after employees won a bitter three year court battle to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The court also ordered the company to raise wages by 33 per cent to £6.70 an hour.
UFCW Canada president Wayne Hanley said: “This is another attack on the workers and the community and one more example of Wal-Mart’s blatant disregard for Canada’s charter of rights and freedoms. Wal-Mart thinks a cheap oil change is more important than the Canadian constitution. Now it is up to the Supreme Court to tell Wal-Mart it is not above the law and must respect the rights of workers to organise and bargain collectively.”
It is the second time that Wal-Mart, an aggressively anti-union company which owns Asda in Britain, has closed an outlet after employees asked to be represented. Three years ago it closed a supermarket in Jonquière when workers voted to organise.
Wal-Mart’s global sales soared by 10.2 per cent to £54 billion in the first three months of this year but it says the court-imposed pay rise would have raised costs too much.
The company – which earlier this year said “tough times mean good times for Wal-Mart” – claims it could not afford to pay TLE workers £6.70 an hour.
