GMB Members Win The Right To Collective Bargaining In The UK ASDA Wal-Mart Distribution Depots

GMB Members Win The Right To Collective Bargaining In The UK ASDA Wal-Mart Distribution Depots
UK: VICTORY AT WAL-MART

LabourStart reports. Wal-Mart is known to many of you as the ultimate "union-free" company. It
has been nearly impossible for trade unionists to get a foothold in the
company's US stores, though there have been some organizing victories in
Canada. A few years back, Wal-Mart acquired a British supermarket chain,
Asda, leading to concerns that the company's anti-union tactics would now
spread across the Atlantic. It is in this context that we must understand
-- and celebrate -- the victory announced this week by Britain's GMB
union.

In a word, the GMB established the right of workers to organize
collectively and be represented by unions of their choice at the
distribution depots of Asda. They achieved this by preparing for a
major strike. Not only did they win recognition from management for
current union members, they also won "access to all ASDA distribution
sites (current and future), with facilities for appropriate levels of
union workplace representatives, facilities to distribute union
literature, recruit into the union, present the union case during company
induction procedures" and more. For full details of this victory, read
the union press release here:

http://www.gmb.org.uk/Templates/PressItems.asp?NodeID=94098