But others were not so thrilled about Wal-Mart's pay -- starting at about $6.20 U.S. an hour -- its floating shifts for part-timers, or the rules that limited some full-time employees to 28 hours of work a week. In an area built on union jobs, with higher wage scales, it wasn't long before some employees tried to organize.

The starting wages are comparable to those paid to new employees by U.S. retailers. The other two stores around Jonquiere are not unionized.

Those involved in the organizing effort claim they were harassed by the company. "We were targeted fairly quickly by Wal-Mart," said Pierre Martineau, a 60-year-old maintenance man who helped organize the union. He said he was humiliated and ridiculed by managers at a storewide meeting and followed around by supervisors who made implied threats.

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

"I felt treated worse than an animal," he said.

Those who did not want a union say organizers harassed them to join. "People signed the cards just to get some peace" from the union organizers, said Noella Langlois, 53, who works in the clothing department. "They thought they would vote against it in a secret vote."

In fact, there was a vote last April that rejected the union. But under Quebec labor laws, the organizers could try again. When they collected signed union cards from 51 percent of the employees, the law declared the Jonquiere Wal-Mart a union shop.

Pelletier, the Wal-Mart spokesman, says the Quebec laws are unfair, and only a secret ballot would show the true feelings of the workers.

"Signing a union card, when there's someone on your doorstep at night saying, 'Sign this card,' should not be the last word," he said. "A democratic, secret vote is the only way to avoid intimidation by either the union or an employer."

But it became moot in February, when Wal-Mart announced it would close the store. Company officials said it was losing money, and the demands of the union would have made it even less tenable.

"You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules," Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. told The Washington Post after the announcement.

‘A threat’
Some here in Jonquiere don't believe the company's claim that the store was losing money. They say the chain sacrificed the store to make a point to its employees across Canada and the United States, where union organizers are involved in dozens of organizing drives and court battles.

"They closed it to be a threat to other unions," said Tremblay, the mayor. "We know that for Wal-Mart, Jonquiere is nothing. They wanted to close it to make a lesson to other Wal-Marts."

The move sharpened apprehensions in the community over the loss of high-paying union jobs to lower-paying retail jobs. Mayor Tremblay said new, smaller manufacturing and retail concerns will provide new work. But he acknowledged that they are not likely to be at the union wages of $21 to $35 [U.S.] an hour found in the paper and aluminum plants.

"A reasonable union is good. Workers have to live. They have rights," the mayor said. "But maybe our wages were too high."

"I think all the large unionized companies will look for cheaper labor in China or elsewhere," said Serge Janelle, 45, who lost his union job at a paper mill 16 months ago and is hoping to retrain as a truck driver. "We knew the power of the union was diminishing. We made concessions. But it wasn't enough."

Jonquiere residents chose sides. Immediately after the store announced it was closing, business plummeted in an unofficial boycott of Wal-Mart.

"It was so quiet in the store you could hear a fly," said Patrice Bergeron, 25, whose task of restocking the refrigerated food section dropped from 10 times a day to once, he said.

The announcement deepened animosities among the employees. Those who liked their jobs and said they were happy at Wal-Mart are bitter at the union for its tactics, which they blame for the store closure.

‘Duped by the union’
"We were duped by the union. There was absolutely no need to unionize," said Rejan Lavoie, 40, a single father who took a job as a department manager at Wal-Mart in order to be home in the evenings with his 8-year-old son. He fears he will not find another job with a workable schedule.

At its headquarters on the outskirts on Jonquiere, the union is organizing a drive to find jobs for the Wal-Mart union supporters and to provide them with financial assistance.

"We weren't asking for the moon," said Bergeron, who spent two years quietly contacting fellow employees at their homes to enlist them in the union. "It's the largest and richest company in the world. They could afford to improve conditions. We only wanted to be treated like human beings."

Sylvie Lavoie, 40, said she is unsure how, as a single mother, she will support herself and her 10-year-old daughter after the store closes. But the backup cashier, who earns $7.55 (U.S.) an hour, said she does not regret joining the union drive.

"We can't regret trying to make our lives better," she said at the union hall. "I don't know what I'll do, but I know my daughter will be proud of me."

< Prev | 1 | 2

Discuss Story On Newsvine
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh
Email
Instant Message
Print