Pro-union actions spread at Wal-Mart
The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) opened the first, tiny crack in the anti-union armor of Wal-Mart stores - and the crack may be spreading nationwide.

In February, meat department workers at the Jacksonville, Texas Wal-Mart "superstore" voted 7-3 to become the first union employees in the company's U.S. chain. Wal-Mart's responded by threatening to close all their meat departments and sell only pre-packaged meat products.

Wal-Mart tried its best union-busting tactics to make sure the vote went its way, including giving workers four hours pay to attend half-hour captive audience sessions with management and stacking the deck with anti-union workers prior to the vote.

The company has filed an appeal with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming that only 10 of the store's 350 employees voted. The NLRB has since order the company to go to the bargaining table.

Maurice Miller, a meat cutter who led the in-store campaign, said if he had been given the $2 an hour raise he had been promised, he never would have started the organizing campaign. Wal-Mart meat cutters are paid $7-$8 an hour less than union meat cutters.

Displeasure with Wal-Mart may be spreading among workers. On March 16, meat and seafood employees at the retail giant's Normal, Illinois superstore filed a petition for a union representation election. That came a day after the NLRB ordered an election for meat and seafood workers in Palestine, Texas and three days after workers at the Ocala, Florida store filed for a representation election.

"(Wal-Mart) had $138 billion in revenue in 1999, $4.4 billion in profit alone, and yet their employees are at the bottom of the wage scale," said UFCW 12-A President Dan Hudyma. He said the stores pay low wages, work employees only part-time and compete with union stores that pay good wages and benefits - yet Wal-Mart stores are usually welcomed with open arms by community leaders.

Jobless rate dips to 30-year low
LANSING - Michigan's jobless rate fell to a record low of 2.7 percent in February - the lowest ever under the unemployment record-keeping system adopted in 1970, and the only time since then that it has fallen below 3.0 percent.

Michigan's rate was the lowest in the Midwest. The national rate for February was 4.1 percent, and Michigan's rate has remained below the national average for almost five years in a row.