Analysis

1. Summarize the main problem and its setting.

2. list possible ways of responding to the problem.

3. identify moral principles and theories that most directly apply to the case.

4. Identify and justify the one response that you think is morally best.

5. Explain why the other possible responses are not as acceptable.

Dan Schlademan was used to doing the impossible. Since 2010, Schlademan had been coordinating the fight to organize workers at Wal-Mart, the largest private-sector employer-and one of the most virulently anti-union companies'-in the United States. For decades, union attempts to organize Wal-Mart failed in the face of the retail giant's extreme tactics. Frustrated, leadership at the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers union) turned to Schlademan, a veteran labor organizer with a track record of prevailing in difficult situations. Just as David chose the sling over the sword before conquering Goliath, Schlademan recognized that he would not be successful going head-to-head with Wal-Mart using traditional strategies. So he chose something different; he created OUR Walmart, a grassroots, informal system of community, education, and advocacy.

OUR Walmart eschewed collective bargaining and focused instead on building a community, finding creative ways to communicate, and orchestrating stand-alone awareness campaigns. Its mission was to "join together to offer strength and support in addressing the challenges that arise in our stores and our companies everyday." Although some might have thought such plan would only make minor improvements for employees, OUR Walmart steadily gained traction. It enlisted thousands of Wal-Mart's 1.5 million workers. While Schlademan was pleased with the progress the organization had made in the last eight years, OUR Walmart's next steps were less clear. Should he encourage OUR Walmart to implement a more formal membership system? Should they seek to establish more processes and procedures? How could OUR Walmart measure and communicate its success to Wal-Mart employees, management, and society in general? How would the organization sustain itself over the coming decades?

OUR Walmart had made a pledge to be free from dependence on philanthropy in three years; what other sources of funding could fill that gap?

Efforts to Unionize Wal-Mart

UFCW made numerous attempts to organize Wal-Mart employees over the years. Facing opposition when organizing on a large scale, it attempted to tackle the retailer by organizing departments within stores. In 2000, after 11 meatpackers at a Wal-Mart in Texas voted to join UFCW, Wal-Mart eliminated all butchers from its stores and switched to pre-packaged meats. Next, UFCW tried launching campaigns in strong union towns, like Las Vegas. These efforts failed after Wal-Mart supervisors intimidated workers into abandoning their efforts to unionize by threatening to eliminate their benefits, refusing to grant a medical release, and inviting employees in a Quebec store voted for unionization in 2004, UFCW and Wal-Mart were unable to reach a collective bargaining agreement. On the day the contract issue was sent to arbitration, Wal-Mart closed that location. The Canadian Supreme Court later found the decision to close the store violated labor law.

Wal-Mart did not simply resist union efforts; it worked proactively against unionization by using new hire indoctrination and training materials to discourage its employees from organizing. In 1991, Wal-Mart released a guide aimed at its warehouse employees titled "Labor Relations and You at the Wal-Mart Distribution Center." In 1997, it released a training guide for new managers titled "A Manager's Toolbox for Remaining Union Free." Hacker activist group Anonymous leaked Wal-Mart PowerPoint presentations shown to new hires, which warned employees that unions and other labor organizations would take money from employees and offer nothing in return. The stakes on both sides of the unionization question were high: some speculated that when Wal-Mart, a corporation with over 1.5 million employees- "more than the population of Vermont and Wyoming combined" - successfully suppressed labor organization, it contributed to unions' "lost power to set wage and labor standards" nationally.

In 2010, UFCW turned to Schlademan to relaunch the UFCW's Wal-Mart efforts. Prior to the Wal-Mart effort, Schlademan spent 15 years with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), where he directed the Houston "Justice for Janitors" campaign, described as "one of the most successful large-scale union organizing drives in the South in recent years." Justice for Janitors included a four-week strike that won union representation, health care, better wages, and full-time hours for over 5,000 janitors in the state of Texas, a state historically resistant to union organizing.

Since traditional union models proved insufficient against Wal-Mart, Schlademan was encouraged to think creatively about how to organize the effort. After evaluation past strategies and their outcomes, Schlademan, fellow SEIU alum Andrea Dehlendorf, and 100 Wal-Mart Associated went to Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, and publicly launched Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart). There, they called for improved wages and benefits, as well as more respectful and less retaliatory treatment in the workplace. In 2012, an even larger group attended the annual shareholder meeting to advocate for better conditions for workers. According to Schlademan, these events built momentum for Wal-Mart Associates, who realized that other people in their positions felt the same way.

In response, Wal-Mart publicly dismissed OUR Walmart as being a union in disguise. Behind the scenes, Wal-Mart contacted the FBI and hired an intelligence-gathering service from the global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin to monitor organizing activities. It also gathered data to rank its store locations by the number of labor-organizing activities, staffed its corporate labor hotline, and surveilled the employees who were active in OUR Walmart.

OUR Walmart Organization

OUR Walmart was a separate entity from UFCW, but until 2015 it received 95% if its funding from the union. While this funding stream allowed for stability, it also constrained the fledgling organization. UFCW's funding was derived from its members, and because Wal-Mart was not unionized, OUR Walmart did not serve or benefit the union's members. Thus, while the union supported OUR Walmart, it could not justify spending substantial sums of money on OUR Walmart's initiatives. In 2015, decisions were made that OUR Walmart would separate from the union-and its primary funding stream- entirely. As of 2018, the Organization United for Respect (OUR) was a completely independent entity and the fiscal sponsor of OUR Walmart, its primary project. OUR was a 501(3) nonprofit organization; OUR Walmart was a 501(5) nonprofit entity. This structure allowed OUR to pursue diverse funding sources, with foundations comprising the bulk of its current funding. In 2018, the Organization had a paid staff of fewer than 20, as well as volunteer Wal-Mart Associates who served as OUR Walmart Leaders.

Schlademan believed that the tipping point on resources would stimulate greater innovations, and that organizational dependence could sometimes hamper creativity and discourage high-risk investments. Subsequent events seemed to prove his theory correct; although independence from the union reduced its financial resources considerably, OUR Walmart continued to grow. Since Wal-Mart trained its associates to perceive "union" as a dirty word, workers were more comfortable joining OUR Walmart when it was completely separated from the union. The Wal-Mart training materials, which warned about the dangers of unions, focused on member dues, collective bargaining, and other hallmarks of traditional unions. Thus, by eliminating its affiliation with a union and rejecting some of those traditional tools of labor organizing, OUR Walmart attracted workers who did not wish to be associated with a stigmatized union.

The Digital Age of Labor Organizing: Online to Offline

With 5,000 Wal-Mart stores nationwide, it was logistically very difficult to conduct traditional in-person organizing at the national or regional level. But small, local in-person campaigns were too disconnected from the larger workforce and were vulnerable to swift, harsh retaliation from the retailer. Given the geographic distance among stores and the huge network of Walmart associates, OUR Walmart leveraged online tools to connect workers, creating strong networks that could generate support for in-person events.

Specifically, OUR Walmart maintained an e-mail list, Facebook groups (including "Secret" groups identified by issue), and a smartphone app called Workit. Whereas union members typically attended scheduled meetings weekly, monthly, or quarterly, Wal-Mart associates could access OUR Walmart's online forums 24 hourper day, 7 days per week. OUR Walmart gave associates an online platform to create and develop real, meaningful communities. Although the entry point for organization was online, the goal was for employees to eventually take action offline and face-to-face. The online-offline structure of OUR Walmart supported communities and catalyzed real actions and real change. Without offline, in-person action, the online forums ran the risk of being merely "clicktivism." Schlademan describes this distinction, noting:

These aren't just anonymous signatures. People understand that this is a campaign, that

the company will get their names. And it's different from, for example, a MoveOne.org campaign. These are workers going to their employer, who has a lot of power over them.

One of the most prominent examples of a successful campaign conducted through online-offline organizing was "Respect the Bump," a campaign to promote humane policies for pregnant workers. Girshriela Green, a Wal-Mart associate in the Crenshaw area of Los Angeles, became involved in OUR Walmart after work injuries let her incapacitated. In 2014, she connected with another associate in Texas, Chrissy Creech, though a Facebook group Green helped start. While Creech was pregnant, she began bleeding after her manager had denied her request for bathroom breaks. The associates in the Facebook group met at Creech's home, where Chrissy's mother inadvertently gave the campaign its name when she touched Creech's stomach and said the Wal-Mart needed "to respect thus bump!" The associates prepared a resolution on pregnancy policy for the annual shareholder meeting. Schlademan and Dehlendorf assisted in getting several in getting several legal and policy organizations involved to support the effort.

Reacting to the threat of associate action, Wal-Mart quickly revised its policy prior to the shareholder meeting. Later, after a pregnant associate was fired for missing work while recovering from injuries sustained when two televisions fell on her during her shift at an Illinois store, several dozen associates gathered to protest and organized hundreds of calls to demand Wal-Mart investigate the incident. Respect the Bump was exemplary of OUR Walmart's vision: employees connect online, organize offline, and make a real difference. Dehlendorf has praised the organization's structure for its ability to allow OUR Walmart to:

Nimbly get behind and amplify the effort, help gather more examples and stories, and bring together the women for a training. Plus, [OUR Walmart] could connect them to national organizations working on economic justice.

WorkIt

Through monitoring the Facebook groups, OUR Walmart found that many employees sought information on Wal-Mart's policies. Although Facebook was useful for bringing communities together in their organization efforts, it was not the ideal platform for sharing information about policies. First, posts on Facebook groups were not vetted for accuracy. Second, these posts were not catalogued or readily searchable. Third, as new posts were created, old conversations disappeared. In addition, many of the questions employees asked in their Facebook groups overlapped with broader legal questions. For example, an associate might ask a question about Wal-Mart reducing her hours, but also express concern that the reduction in income would cause her to fall behind on rent. Thus, the question about Wal-Mart's policy of cutting hours became a question on how to avoid eviction.

To offer support beyond information found within Wal-Mart's human resources manual, OUR Walmart developed a smartphone app called WorkIt. According to Schlademan, the WorkIt team began by establishing "a model that focuses on developing leaders who empower other people to understand their rights and then bring them into community with others. These communities of support become communities of action.

The app evaluated and aggregated vast amounts of information from numerous sources, including court rulings, narrative experiences, legislation, and corporate policies to "create a simplified, relevant pathway to help workers navigate their way across a complex rights and accountability landscape."

The app allowed employees to access verified, accurate information from trained expert associates. This ensured high-quality responses to employee inquiries and, unlike posts in Facebook groups, the information in the app remained reliably accessible over time. When users interacted with the app to ask questions, and IBM-powered artificial intelligence program worked in the background to identify questions that had already been answered and produced the best answers to those questions. This ensured that workers received quick answers and that useful information was not lost.

Users could create an account on the app to access topics, chats, and news. Alternatively, anyone could use the app to ask a question anonymously. When the app was open, the user could select "Ask anonymously" to bypass entering login credentials. A chat window appeared with a message from WorkIt reading: "Hi, how can we help?" User could ask questions and the artificial intelligence identified keywords to produce an instant response. For example, the same response populated after typing any of the following:

• "My grandfather died, and I need time off"
• Bereavement policy"
• "Death in the family"
• "Does bereavement affect my paid time off?"

The near -instant response to those search terms was:

Notify management of your loss so that they can approve those days off, as per policy. Bereavement is up to 3 scheduled days off with pay and does not affect your PTO or absence points. You can take those days immediately or wait till the day of the service. Bereavement covers the mother, father, brother, sister, child, or grandparent whether by birth or marriage. Check with your [sic] store manager for all other relationship situation requests. While it is not required by policy, management can request an obituary. Most

times, showing the memorial card that is usually available from the funeral home is acceptable for this. We're sorry for your loss.

In addition to its Q&A feature, the app also included a peer-to-peer communication function with chatrooms and forums. Associates could use the app to form subgroups based upon specific issues; users searched the forums for a topic and invited others who asked about that issue to join a subgroup and participate in organization efforts.

As of March 2018, WorkIt had more than 10,000 downloads on Android and iOS platforms. After Wal-Mart learned of WorkIt, it engaged in efforts to discourage employees from using the app. Even though OUR Walmart released the app more than a year after severing its relationship with UFCW, the Wall Street Journal reported that a Wal-Mart internal document instructed store managers to tell their employees that the app used "deceptive and slick looking social media and mobile apps" to manipulate employees into giving their personal information to a union. The Wall Street Journal criticized Wal-Mart's internal document and explained that creating an account on the app only required a name, email, telephone number, and zip code. Users could add their job title and store number, but they were not required to do so. Furthermore, anyone could download the app use the "Ask Anonymously" feature without providing any information whatsoever. The app did not require users to grant permissions to access the smartphone's location, photos, or contacts.

Measuring Success

Traditional unions typically measure success through objective standards such as entering into a beneficial collective bargaining agreement, growing membership, and receiving recognition from the government and employer. Satisfying these objective criteria also helps unions stay in power, because they are readily credited for improving workers' lives through collective bargaining.

For labor rights organizations like OUR Walmart, measuring success was not as straight forward. OUR Walmart made a strategic decision to not engage in collective bargaining; instead, it created networking opportunities for associated and supported associate-driven initiatives. As Schlademan explained:

We don't set the agenda. We're not trying to become the collective bargaining representative for Walmart workers. We're trying to demonstrate that collective action can lead to change and power.

OUR Walmart's strategic decision to stay in the background made it difficult to counter Wal-Mart's tactic of taking credit for policy changes and wage increases. The organization recognized multiple venues where change could occur - at the store, regional, and national levels. At the national level, OUR Walmart helped associates pressure Wal-Mart to revise its pregnancy policy and increase employee wages. At the local level, OUR Walmart led to thousands of small victories for employees by supplying them with the information and resources necessary to confront Wal-Mart managers. Even with these identifiable victories at various levels, assessing whether OUR Walmart is fulfilling its potential was challenging.

Ruminating on the past eight years, Schlademan wondered about next steps. It appeared that OUR Walmart had been successful, but how could OUR Walmart measure that success? How could the organization determine whether it has been as effective as it could be? Did it have the right organizational structure and allocation of resources? As of 2018, there was only symbolic membership among workers. Should OUR Walmart organize its members more formally? How should OUR Walmart plan for the future?