Wal-Mart Watch: SEIU, the UFCW, and the Teamsters - oh my:

The unions are talking of spending $25 million a year on the effort, more than has ever been spent before in a union campaign against a single company. "This isn't a campaign, this is a movement," said Greg Denier, spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. "There's no precedent for this. It's a movement to confront the reality of Wal-Mart-ization. No other company has ever had the global economic impact that Wal-Mart has." Wal-Mart has 1.2 million workers in the United States, more than any other company, but no unionized workers. It has a history of fiercely resisting unionization efforts... The new effort, to be announced officially in several months, will also be unusual because most union campaigns involve just one union. Because Wal-Mart is so huge, labor leaders have concluded that several unions should work with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. on the effort. Among those participating are the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Many union leaders have criticized the food and commercial workers for doing too little over the past decade to unionize Wal-Mart, but the union's new president, Joseph Hansen, has vowed to do more. Andrew L. Stern, the service employees' president, said: "Wal-Mart is much too big for any one union to tackle. The Wal-Mart-ing of the economy is a threat to every union."