The Washington Post has a good article on the closing of the Wal-Mart store in Jonquiere, Quebec that many people believe was closed because a union was able to organize the store. I found the article by way of a post on the Volokh Conspiracy by Todd Zywicki. In his post, he says:

This is interesting to me, from the standpoint that as a result of the union activities the store was closed, killing the jobs of union and non-union members alone. But if we assume that Wal-Mart and the union share some sort of moral culpability of the union in the store closure, it seems somewhat troubling that the union tells the now-unemployed non-union members to take a hike, while helping out those who voted to join the union. I certainly haven’t thought through who owes moral duties to whom in this context (maybe there is a philosopher out there who can explain how to think about this), but at least as a first approximation, to to my mind it does raise an interesting and potentially troubling ethical dilemma as to what duties we owe to those who we injure indirectly at least in part, through our actions.

What’s interesting to me is that he questions the ethical choices of the union but forgets to actually wonder what Wal-Mart is doing. Because, you know, I doubt they’re actually helping any employees at all.

Implicit in all of this is that the union’s organizing activities is a primary reason the store was closed. Even the employees who were against the union seem to concede this. That seems wrong and, quite frankly, more problematic than anything the union is doing helping supporters find jobs. It isn’t the first time Wal-Mart has done stuff like this (read the article), and maybe that’s why Prof. Zywicki chose to omit it from his post.

Then again, he says:

Wal-Mart’s questionable tactics and bullying have been well-reported, but the techniques used by the union organizers to intimidate employees into joining the union were interesting to me.

Of course, I didn’t see anything in the article that claimed the union organizers intimidated folks beyond two passing sentences, one from a department manager (e.g. the people that pro-union employees claim harrassed them). So, maybe Zywicki is just making stuff up?

In the end, my reaction to Zywicki’s post is this: the decision by Wal-Mart to close the store simply because of union activities is at least as morally suspect as the union’s decision to help only the pro-union employees. I personally believe it to be more suspect because they put all these people out of work simply to make a point. These people didn’t need to be out of work. The union didn’t take action with the goal of putting these people out of work.

It’s unfortunate, because there is a good debate to focus on here, specifically the way a group of people organize into a union. This store was organized using a card check system rather than a secret ballot. The card check system is is being reviewed by the Bush NLRB and from where I sit (not a labor expert by any means), I can see the potential for abuse in that system by both parties. There’s so much room for intimidation or rushed choices in both the election process and the card check system that it’s hard for me to imagine what a perfect system could be. Some more information is here.

Update: I took another stab at this post, which I rushed at lunch to get out. Hopefully it’s a bit clearer.