Walmart protests throughout the world.

These developments against Walmart are very positive and a long time coming. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the leadership of the Union most heavily involved in the drive, like the entire leadership of organized Labor, have the business view of these organizations. They see the Unions as employment organizations with them as the CEO's. To win Walmart would be a huge revenue enhancer in the form of dues.

As far as the already existing members in the retail grocery outlet, the UFCW leadership like their colleagues throughout the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federations, have presided over a never ending slide backwards through their cooperation with the employers and their Team Concept approach to the Labor/Capital struggle.  The Team Concept, the dominant ideology of the trade Union leadership holds that workers and bosses have the same economic interests.  This means that workers must take measures (concessions) to assist their own individual employers in winning "market share" at the expense of their rivals. 

This disastrous world view leads workers in one company competing with workers at a competitor for who can work the hardest, fastest and most cheaply. It has the same effect globally as workers from one country compete against workers from another.  The bosses can only win when the game is played this way.  It is a disastrous race to the bottom and makes solidarity organizing and the building of a generalized offensive of our own much harder.  Any rank and file movement from below that wants to fight back in a serious way and opposes this relationship the Union heads have built with the employers and their Democratic Party based on Labor peace is seen as hostile and suppressed with the help of an army of full time staff at their disposal.

To Unionize Walmart would be a great step forward as long as we recognize that the other struggle, the more complex battle within our organizations to change the concessionary and employer friendly policies of the leadership, and the leadership themselves is the much harder war that has to be fought.