It will be a steep hill to climb but it’s good to read about this, via The Wall Street Journal:

The United Food and Commercial Workers union is ramping up organizing at Wal Mart Stores Inc. after a five-year lull, dovetailing with its efforts to win support in Congress for a bill to make union organizing easier.

The Bentonville, Ark., retailer, a leading opponent of the legislation, said managers have seen increased union activity at a number of stores, prompting mandatory meetings to discuss unionization. "We have noticed that the UFCW has been working harder lately in its attempts to get Wal-Mart associates to sign union cards, but we don’t think our associates have any reason to be more interested than before," said Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar.

   And…

Since February, about 60 UFCW organizers have been dispatched to more than 100 Wal-Mart stores in 15 states to get workers to sign union-authorization cards. The cards are attached to flyers that feature a photograph of President Barack Obama and a quote from a 2007 speech he gave to UFCW activists in Chicago. "I don’t mind standing up for workers and letting Wal-Mart know they need to pay a decent wage and let folks organize," Mr. Obama said in 2007. A White House spokesman said Thursday that the president stands by the statement.

Meanwhile, the UFCW plans to fly about 100 pro-union Wal-Mart workers to Washington this month to lobby members of Congress on the pending legislation, known as Employee Free Choice Act. The bill, organized labor’s top legislative priority, would allow unions to bypass secret-ballot elections and form union locals if more than 50% of workers at a company location signed cards requesting representation. At this point, the union said it hasn’t obtained majority support at any Wal-Mart stores, but has majorities in a handful of individual departments, which can be unionized separately.

   Remember, this isn’t easy. In Canada, where the ability to unionize is a lot easier under the law, it took FOUR years to get a contract NEGOTIATED with Wal-Mart after workers in 2005 chose a union at the St-Hyacinthe Wal-Mart east of Montreal–the first unionized Wal-Mart store in all of North America.

   But, lots of praise to the UFCW for digging in.