WINDSOR, Ontario, March 8 (UPI) -- Workers at a Wal-Mart store in Windsor, Canada, voted Tuesday on whether to unionize within the fiercely anti-union retail giant.
The results of the voting may not be known for weeks, but the company already is challenging a decision to exclude 40 department managers from voting, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The company says the managers aren't really managers, but hourly employees, the report said.
The voting is the culmination of an effort by the United Food and Commercial Workers to unionize workers at Canada's 254 Wal-Mart stores because of the country's more worker-friendly labor laws that the United States, the Journal said.
"We're causing more of a stir in Canada, but we have not necessarily been more successful," says Jill Cashen, spokeswoman for the UFCW in Washington.
The union's efforts have intensified in recent years as Wal-Mart aggressively opened up massive outlets that sell fresh groceries in addition to general merchandise. Called supercenters, these stores pay lower wages and benefits than do unionized supermarkets, the Journal said.
