JACKSONVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A judge has ruled that a Wal-Mart store here must reopen its meat-cutting department and bargain with unionized butchers whose jobs disappeared when the chain switched to using prepackaged meat.þþJudge Keltner Locke, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge, ordered the retail chain Wednesday to meet with the butchers and negotiate over the effects of the change.þþ``This is a historic decision -- the first bargaining order issued against Wal-Mart in the United States,'' union leader Johnny Rodriguez said in a statement. ``It is a victory for all Wal-Mart workers who are fighting for a voice at work.''þþIn 2000, seven of the 10 butchers at the Jacksonville store voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The vote marked the only union success at a Wal-Mart store.þþWal-Mart Stores Inc. soon announced it was closing its meat-cutting departments across the country. Many of the butchers were reassigned to meat stockers.þþWal-Mart downplayed the latest ruling, describing it as ``limited.''þþ``Wal-Mart has consistently contended that the union should never have been certified in Jacksonville because the election result was improperly influenced by union misconduct and because the bargaining unit requested was improperly narrow,'' the company said in a release. ``This portion of the ruling will be appealed.''þþIn recent months, organized labor has escalated efforts to unionize Wal-Mart stores after five years of failing to even dent the world's largest retailer's armor.þþ
Source: NY Times
