Wal-Mart is not above the law.

So what did I miss while I was in lovely Southern California? “Gatineau Wal-Mart workers awarded contract: Arbitrator imposes only labour pact for retailing giant in North America” [Yes, I see that Robert has already covered this story, but do you really expect me to leave news like this alone?] My source, The Ottawa Citizen offers the full context:

The Gatineau Wal-Mart’s collective agreement came into force yesterday.

The contract followed a three-year judicial battle, noted the local president, where Wal-Mart “kept contesting everything.”

The unionization was recognized by Quebec’s Labour Board in June 2005, but a month later the employer requested a judicial review. In February 2006, Justice Diane Marcelin of Quebec’s Superior Court rejected Wal-Mart’s request, and in July 2006, the minister of labour referred the dispute to an arbitrator. Hearings ended a few weeks ago, in early June.

OK, Wal-Mart has exercised it’s full rights under the laws of Quebec. What’s it going to do now? After what happened in Jonquiere, everyone is guessing they’ll close the Tire and Lube, or even the whole store. But wait, there’s more like this coming:

Arbitrator Alain Corriveau, who imposed the Gatineau agreement is expected to make a decision soon regarding a a first contract at a Wal-Mart in St-Hyacinthe, 60 kilometres southeast of Montreal, covering 200 associates and 10 technicians, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, are awaiting their first collective agreement.

At that rate they’ll have to close every store in Quebec to keep Wal-Mart Canada union free. So what do we get from Wal-Mart?:

“We are disappointed that at first glance the agreement will have a significant impact on our business model.”

Someone goes one step further:

My expectation is that they will close it, and it would be justified given their business model. If you aren’t making a profit; you don’t stay in business. Would they close every single one that unionizes in the future? They might.

Lucky Canada.

What Wal-Mart and Someone don’t seem to understand is that if your business model runs afoul of the law, it’s your business model that has to give because that’s the law! Just because you’re Wal-Mart does not give you the right to pick which laws you want to obey and which laws you don’t. Do business in Canada and you abide by their liberal laws. Do business in the United States and you hold secret meetings in the hopes that your own employees won’t realize that what’s good for Wal-Mart isn’t necessarily good for them too. Canada is just a little ahead of the curve.

Coincidentally, the New York Times ran a review this morning of the book I finished on the plane to San Diego last week, The Wrecking Crew by Thomas Frank. It highlighted my favorite quote from the whole thing:

“The reason that we have so many well-funded libertarians in America these days is not because libertarianism suddenly acquired an enormous grass-roots following, but because it appeals to those who are able to fund ideas. … Libertarianism is a politics born to be subsidized.”

In other words, when the Waltons fund the American Enterprise Institute it’s not just an investment, it’s another front in its ongoing war against organized labor. Perhaps the only good side of our current slow-motion economic catastrophe is that it makes libertarian anti-union arguments seem even more ludicrous than normal.

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