May 15 , 2000 Collateral Damage BY JOHN PILGER Ten years of sanctions in Iraq Under Siege BY ANTHONY ARNOVE Hans von Sponeck steps down The IMF: Kill It or Fix It? BY G. PASCAL ZACHARY How to Fix the IMF BY DAVID MOBERG First, do no harm Water Fallout BY JIM SHULTZ Bolivians battle globalization ICANN: Secret government of the Internet? BY STEVEN HILL The fight over who will control the Web The Big Payback BY SALIM MUWAKKIL African-Americans renew the call for reparations News & Views Editorial BY JASON VEST Capital crimes Appall-O-Meter BY DAVID FUTRELLE A Terry Laban Cartoon No Justice for Janitors BY DAVID BACON L.A. workers take the first step toward a nationwide strike Wal-Martyrs BY KARI LYDERSEN Unionizing means job cuts at the world's largest retailer Fishy Business BY JEFF SHAW Washington State is failing to protect endangered salmon Wasted BY JEFF ST. CLAIR Russia moves ahead with shady nuclear scheme Profile BY DAVID MOBERG Luis Alfonso Velasquez: Wanted man Culture The Culture Vultures BY LAURA BRAHM BOOKS: Art as instrument of foreign policy Left in the Dust BY TED KLEINE BOOKS: A HIstory of the Small & the Invisible Queer Godfather BY DOUG IRELAND BOOKS: Martin Duberman, intellectual No Jacket Required BY JOSHUA ROTHKOPF FILM: American Psycho Rememberance of Things Trashed BY CALEB MASON

Wal-Martyrs By Kari Lydersen With $5.6 billion a year in profits and thousands of stores mushrooming around the country, Wal-Mart has become notorious for its union-busting tactics. Maurice Miller, a meat cutter at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Jacksonville, Texas, got a first-hand taste of the company's anti-union vitriol when he and six other meat cutters voted to become members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 540 on February 17. Starting with meat cutters, the UFCW wants to unionize the 1 million Wat-Mart employees across the country. Credit: UFCW Several days after the vote, Wal-Mart gave Miller and thousands of other meat cutters and meat wrappers around the country some surprising news: The company is replacing meat-cutting with prepackaged, case-ready meat at 180 of its Supercenter stores in six states starting in May. Eventually, all 700 Supercenter stores nationwide will make this change. Wal-Mart says this switch has been in the works for years, and promises that the meat cutters all will be reassigned to different jobs. "Wal-Mart is going case-ready for one reason," says company spokeswoman Jessica Moser, "it's the highest quality you can provide customers today." But workers call the timing of the announcement a calculated anti-union move. Miller says workers hadn't heard anything about the switch until the vote - the store even had recently purchased thousands of dollars worth of new meat-cutting equipment. While it's true workers won't lose their jobs, he said, they are worried about switches in their duties, hours and wages. "This is an intimidation tactic," says UFCW spokeswoman Jill Cashen. "Basically they're trying to frighten thousands of other workers around the country away from unionizing. They're showing them that if you vote to unionize, your department is cut."   TOP HOME SUBSCRIBE MAIL   In These Times © 2000 Vol. 24, No. 12