Retailing - Wal-Mart casualisation drive
WORKERS, FEB 2007 ISSUE
Following the GMB's successful threat of industrial action and negotiating strategy against Wal-Mart in the summer of 2006, the supermarket giant's anti-union strategy – another one – is slowly emerging.
Using computer technology Wal-Mart plans to track customer shopping patterns and maximise staffing to meet demand. In other words casualisation of staff will be maximised, with shifts, hours, wages cut and all misleadingly called "labour optimisation".
Of course, it has nothing to do with labour optimisation, just maximising every second they can screw out of some of the lowest paid workers. As they describe it, "Labour becomes more of a variable cost than a fixed cost and employed when it's needed, rather than wasted." ASDA, Wal-Mart's UK subsidiary, cleared £775 million in profit in 2006.