Wal didn't get the memo......

[Canadian]

Some of Wals concepts didn't go over well with a population who remembers what a dictatorship style of operation is all about.....and of course the europeans are also largely unionized...2 articles below outline Wals mistakes...
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Wal-Mart's so called love ban scandal is still in fresh memory - the company wanted to forbid friendship relations between its workers. The management in Bentonville also wanted to install an anonymous hotline where workers could tell on each other, showing an incredible lack of sensitivity and ignorance of the bad experiences from the dictatorship years in large parts of Europe.

True to its anti-union approach, Wal-Mart failed to consult its works council, and the whole attempt to install this curious ethics code ended with a German court declaring it illegal.

continue reading-

http://www.union-network.org/unisite...illion_USD.htm
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Goodbye, Germany. Wal-Mart was never a good corporate citizen in Europe's largest economy, but its workers were well organised and could keep the company at bay. Now the Bentonville have seen that walmartization of working life does not work where unions are strong, be it here or in South Korea which the company is also leaving.

And the collective agreement? First, Wal-Mart refused to enter into the general state-level collective agreements or to negotiate its own deal with ver.di, Germany's large commerce union. Then the union forced Wal-Mart to apply all the collective agreement provisions although they had not formally signed it. When management reluctantly had agreed to this, they posted leaflets on their bill-boards, complaining that this bad trade union had forced them to respect collective agreement levels for workers' wages and working conditions. Once again, they shot themselves through the foot.

Wal-Mart's leaving Germany with the tail between its legs is quite different from the picture of a successful and competitive global retailer that the Bentonville management wants to paint. A strong union movement, demanding customers and tough competition is not a welcoming atmosphere for Wal-Mart's social dumping concept. Only a few months earlier, the Bentonville multinational had to leave South Korea, where it would have faced increasingly strong pressure to change, from both the unions and the local consumers.

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http://www.union-network.org/UNIsite...in_Germany.htm