Businesses, unions in Good Friday brawl

WASHINGTON, April 14 (UPI) -- Good Friday marked a fresh escalation of the ongoing slugfest between big U.S. businesses and big U.S. unions.

WakeUpWalMart.com ripped the chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Lee Scott, for taking a month's vacation. And a pro-business group called on the head of the 1.3-million member Service Employees International Union to end a "reckless" hunger strike that's caused one participant to suffer a mild stroke.

"Scott's 'vacation' raises serious questions about whether or not this is the beginning of the end for Mr. Scott's troubled tenure as Wal-Mart's CEO," WakeUpWalMart said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Center for Union Facts called on SEIU president Andy Stern to end the janitors' hunger strike at the University of Miami. The center's executive director, Richard Berman, said Stern is trying "to impose unionization" without a secret ballot vote.

Asked Berman, rhetorically, of Stern: "If you're so against secret ballot elections when forming a union, why are you so in favor of them when it comes time to decertify a union because of poor leadership? If the employees want to form a union, just let them vote."