The bosses informed workers at Walmart stores across the U.S. in February 2019 that the company was implementing a new attendance policy. The giant retailer slashed from nine to five the number of days a worker can call off in any six months (McGivens, T.). They have a point system like many other big corporate jobs. The employees also have to make sure they do not call off on a key event day. A key event day is usually holidays where instead of one point, they are given three. After receiving a maximum of five points, you are terminated. There is paid time off (PTO) and protected PTO, but you have to be with the company for a few months before you accumulate enough time to be considered beneficial.
    Instead of increasing our hourly pay, something Walmart workers across the country sorely need, at the end of every quarter, the company issues what they call a "MyShare" bonus. This is a bribe to accept low wages and poor working conditions. The size of this so-called bonus is arbitrary. It is determined based on the "performance" of each particular store. Managers use the promise of a higher bonus to try and get workers to press each other to speed up. Walmart is using both the carrot and the stick with the bonuses to get workers to toe the line. If you've got "perfect" attendance, the company bumps up your bribe by 25%. This is intended to get workers to come to work even if they're sick, have a personal emergency. Every absence above 2.5 — half of what you're allotted — means your bribe goes down. The "Myshare" bonus is just another way big corporations like Walmart can make a profit off their hard workers. Instead of giving raises, they take the cheapskate way out. This is rewarding the workers it's exhausting them. It's having them come into work regardless of their well-being. Because Walmart doesn't care about the workers' well-being, big corporations will drain their employees and do something like throwing them a pizza party.
    Why unionize a place like Walmart, you might ask. This attendance policy is just the latest example of why workers at Walmart need to organize a union. A fighting union can prevent the bosses arbitrarily imposing draconian absentee policies, shifting schedules and hours, and playing favorites in the workforce on a profit-driven whim (McGivens, T.). Other than the company's biased for a "perfect worker" and running their workers ragged. A union can keep the working-class people safe from greedy big corporations. Some rural areas depend on Walmart jobs. They are cutting workers' weekly hours and demanding workers to come to work whenever Walmart beckons. Company favorites are rewarded with extra hours. This is but one more example of how workers bear the brunt of the profit-driven competition between these giant rivals. To raise the wage, a trade union (i.e., a group of workers who combine to protect their interests) needs to negotiate with and put pressure on employers. By combining in unions, workers can begin to match the power that employers have over them. Collective bargaining, where group of workers appoint representatives to bargain with employers' representatives, attempts to alter the balance of power in the worker-employer relationship.

Pros of Unionization:

•Trade unions maintain and improve workers’ terms and conditions through bargaining with employers.

•Workers organized in trade unions benefit from higher wages—the so-called union wage premium.

•Union bargaining also results in a fringe benefits premium for covered workers.

•Trade unions reduce wage inequality.

•The counter-cyclical wage premium helps to maintain the real wages of covered workers.

•Employees who are represented by a labor union are protected from unfair treatment by an employer.

Sources:
McGivens, T. (2019, July 29). Walmart's attendance policy shows need for a union. Retrieved February 21, 2021, from https://themilitant.com/2019/07/20/walmarts-attendance-policy-shows-need-for-a-union/

Bryson, A. Union wage effects. IZA World of Labor 2014: 35 doi: 10.15185/izawol.35