Wal-Mart closes Quebec Automotive shop where union contract imposed
8 employees affected at Gatineau tire-and-lube garage
Thursday, October 16, 2008
CBC News
Wal-Mart is closing a tire-and-lube garage in Gatineau where workers won a major victory last August when a Quebec arbitrator imposed a collective agreement on the company.
The precedent-setting contract was the first ever imposed on the Arkansas-based retailer by an outside agency.
The agreement affected just eight workers at the garage on Maloney Boulevard in Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa.
The workers are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada.
Wal-Mart said meeting the workers' demands would have forced the company to raise prices at the garage by 30 per cent.
In 2005, Wal-Mart closed an entire store in Jonquière, Que, on the same day Quebec announced an arbitrator would impose a collective agreement there.
Wal-Mart recorded nearly $13 billion US in profits in 2007 — yet its front-line employees make less than $20,000 US a year, on average, and the company has been cited for union-busting tactics by government agencies and independent watchdogs.
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