However for OUR to be truly “grassroots” OUR would have been started by Walmart employees, not cooked up by UFCW officials and a consulting firm in DC and then passed off as “grassroots”. Perhaps that doesn’t matter to you but that deception might matter to some of your coworkers when OUR begins making demands on the company under the claim that it speaks for all Walmart workers.

You say you joined because of a website. But who developed that website? And why has the UFCW so carefully hid the fact that OUR is a UFCW organizing effort?

Finally, Angela, if in the end you and your coworkers actually do decide the direction of OUR — what actions to take, which issues to fight for first, how all your dues dollars are spent, who leads your organization and makes the decisions — congratulations. That would make OUR the first effort the UFCW (or any other union out there) has actually allowed the members to control.

Worry Much?
I belong to OUR. I was not solicited from any other member, or union member.
I was doing some online reading – came across http://www.forrespect.org and read thru the site, did some research on the group and a month later, had decided enough was enough and joined. I contacted the organization before anyone contacted me….

For those of us associates that educate others daily it is a grass roots movement bc we want the basics to be brought back to Walmart.

Also, you talk about money spent to by the UFCW paying a chigh priced consulting firm—Walmart has spent millions with union busting consulting firms such as yourself. How much is your poster proof kit to guide employers on how to turn the right to organize poster into a negative???? Really?? And Walmart will probably pay you for a few colorful posters and a few more ani union dvds to shove down our throats.
And did I mention that myself, and many other associates that sign people into OUR are not employed and or payed by the union to do so?

“And while the effort is organized entirely by UFCW paid staff,”

I speak daily to other associates that are members and are signing others up, together we decide what next action we are going to take as an organization, not the UFCW.
If Walmart would do the right thing with its poor healthcare, understaffed stores, safety issue in some stores, etc….associates wouldn’t feel as though such actions would have to be taken.

And in the current economic conditions it certainly sounds cold-hearted to tell a bread-winner willing and qualified for a job to just go find another one. Is that what your union is telling folks who are dissatisfied customers?

If a worker doesn’t want to join a union or pay dues then why would they ever agree to go to work for an employer that has a collective bargaining agreement in place over the terms and conditions of employment.

So here’s what happens in every union I’m familiar with — staff members devote hours to campaigning for Democrats and leftwing causes and then report that as “representational activity” if it in any way involves members. So, classic example, I’m a staffer supervising a phone bank for a political candidate, my salary is reported as “representational” if there are any members present. If I spend my work days helping members and others in their household who support Democrats to register and vote absentee that’s “representational” even if I don’t do the same for members who tell me they intend to vote Republican. Or if I spend all my time rounding up members to knock doors or gather signatures for liberal candidates or a causes — representational. If I’m a union rep in the shop pushing members to sign up for automatic political donations to come out of their paycheck – representational. Get it?

Hard money political donations are just a small fraction of the resources unions devote to politics. The real money is in “boots on the ground” and, generally speaking, that’s not being reported as political spending.

Sounds like your union has really confused you as to how that process works!

Unions are a scourge.