by Douglas Dority, President, United Food and Commercial Workers Union

Wal-Mart's story may come with a big, yellow smiley face, but it doesn't have the slightest connection to reality. The real story behind the world's largest retailer is that Wal-Mart is dead- set on lowering the wages and benefits of every United Food and Commercial Workers member, every union member and worker in the country.

A year ago, we held a huge rally at Wal-Mart's Arkansas headquarters to tell the giant retailer, "Not in Our Neighborhood." More than 2,000 union families and community activists joined us.

We launched our Good Neighbor campaign to protect our wages and benefits and our communities from Wal-Mart's predatory marketing practices. Thousands of union members and concerned members of communities across the nation have signed Good Neighbor pledge cards. They promised to spend their consumer dollars at supermarkets that pay fair wages and provide good family health care benefits.

The Good Neighbor campaign is bringing together UFCW members and other activists to fight Wal-Mart expansion in their neighborhoods. As a result, zoning boards and city councils from New York to Milwaukee to Arizona are passing regulations and ordinances to keep Wal-Mart from muscling their way into our communities, destroying good jobs and local businesses.

With more than $l65 billion in yearly sales and $5.4 billion in profits, Wal-Mart intends to box in the grocery business with its Sam's Clubs, Neighborhood Markets and Supercenters and, at the same time, box in our wages and benefits by destroying jobs and pitting worker against worker in a race to the bottom.

What is the real story behind Wal-Mart? If Wal-Mart takes 20 percent of the food business from our UFCW union employers, we lose jobs and benefits.

In Southern California alone, economists estimate that big-box supercenters will drastically lower supermarket wages and benefits. But, overall, the presence of supercenters would pull down area wages and benefits by $2.8 billion for all workers, not just those in the supermarket industry.

Wal-Mart will go to any length to fight unionization by its employees. We recently won our first union victory among meat department workers at the Jacksonville, Texas Wal-Mart Supercenter. The company has tried one ploy after another to deny the workers a union of their choice.

On April 21, 2000, a National Labor Relations Board hearing officer dismissed the company's attempt to overturn the election results. The NLRB hearing officer characterized some Wal-Mart testimony as "confused, inherently inconsistent and appeared to be deliberately exaggerated."

We are going to cut through the red tape and take the case directly to the community, to the consumers and to Wal-Mart workers everywhere.

The workers are demanding that Wal-Mart immediately begin to negotiate over hours, schedules, work assignments, wages and health benefits.

At a Texas rally last month in support of the Jacksonville workers, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney pledged a massive education campaign to keep working families informed of Wal-Mart's anti-worker activity.

When workers at the Palestine, Texas Wal-Mart petitioned for a union in the meat department, Wal-Mart made a major national announcement that it plans to cut some skilled meatcutter jobs and switch to "case-ready meat" that is cut, produced, and wrapped at off-site meat processing operations.

This move eventually will de-skill Wal-Mart meat departments, putting downward pressure on wages paid to skilled meatcutters. Wal-Mart later committed numerous labor law violations during a union vote at Palestine that we are protesting before the NLRB.

In Jacksonville, Texas, Wal-Mart cannot make any such changes to its meat department without first bargaining over the proposed changes with the employees legally-elected union.

What's readily apparent is that Wal-Mart is content to provide employees cheers and lip service about how much the company cares. But when it comes to good jobs, good family health care benefits, and decent hours, the company hides behind its yellow smiley face.

Wal-Mart fears a united workforce. The company would do or say anything to deceive and divide workers. We call on our union brothers and sisters around the nation to join us in this nationwide effort to defeat the most hostile anti-union employer in the nation, Wal-Mart.

Join us in the Good Neighbor campaign. Together we will support the courageous Wal- Mart workers who seek to form a union to better their lives. Together we won't let Wal- Mart box us in and drag down our wages and benefits.

How You Can Help Wal-Mart Workers

E-mail letters @ wal-mart.com and tell Wal-Mart to respect workers' right to organize. Tell Wal-Mart that you only use your consumer dollars to shop responsible employers that raise community standards, not lower them.

Read the latest developments about how Wal-Mart workers are standing up to the giant retailer's intimidation and anti-union tactics at: www.walmartyrs.com

Learn more about how Wal-Mart's Bad Neighbor practices lower community living standards at: www.walmartwatch.com