Wal-Mart Union Bid Rejected in Canada

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Tuesday that a labor board blocked a union from organizing staff in the auto department at a store in Canada because it couldn’t be separated from the rest of the store.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union sought to organize 10 employees in the Tire & Lube Express department of a store in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Wal-Mart said in a statement. Targeting them as a separate unit was inappropriate, said Brent Mullin, chairman of British Columbia’s labor relations board, in a June 30 ruling.

This is the latest failure for the union in its bid to represent Canadians who work for the U.S. retailer. The company has a single unionized store, in Quebec. Canadian workers have voted six times against joining the union in the last three years, Wal-Mart spokesman Andrew Pelletier said.

The ruling on the Cranbrook store, which employs about 200, “is a significant decision,” Pelletier said in a telephone interview. “It was highly unusual for the union to carve out such a small group of workers.”

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., will apply to the board to block a similar move by the union at a store in Surrey, British Columbia, Pelletier said.

Wal-Mart closed a store in Jonquiere, Quebec, last year after failing to reach a collective-bargaining agreement with the United Food and Commercial Workers. The union had organized the store by signing more than 50% of workers to union memberships, Pelletier said. The company is negotiating with the union at the store in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, he said.

Mark Clark, the labor board’s deputy registrar, said he couldn’t comment because he hadn’t seen the decision. Union spokesman Michael Forman wasn’t immediately available to comment.