Wal-Mart's bane: Organized labor By Nancy Cleeland and Abigail Goldman, LATimes
For decades, the unions have been a major force in the state grocery industry and have negotiated generous labor contracts. Wal-Mart pays its grocery workers an estimated $10 less per hour in wages and benefits than do the big supermarkets nationwide -- $9 vs. $19. As the grocery chains brace for the competition, their workers face severe cutbacks in compensation.
"We're going to end up just like the Wal-Mart workers," said Rick Middleton, a Teamsters official in Los Angeles County who eagerly hands out copies of a paperback called "How Wal-Mart Is Destroying America." "If we don't as labor officials address this issue now, the future for our membership is dismal, very dismal."