Target Hires Union Actors For Internal Non-Union Video

Filed under: News

If you have been hired at Target Corp. in recent years, chances are you may have endured watching this 13-minute anti-union video which is required viewing for all new employees.

Though Nicky Buggs and Ric Reitz, the two actors in the video seen below, are preaching the pitfalls of joining a union, they are in fact real-life members of a union, according to a story at Salon.

Buggs and Reitz are members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) union. Gawker obtained the video and outlines the details of its anti-union spiel, noting how the video tells employees "you can get more hours" without a union.

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The discovery of the video, which was made in 2003, couldn't have happened at a worse time for Target Corp. The company is in the midst of a tense battle with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union who have launched their first pro-union campaign at 27 Target stores in the New York City area. On Friday (June 17), more than 260 workers at the Target store in Valley Stream, New York, will vote on whether to form a union.

Reitz, who comic book fans may recognize as the guy who plays the U.S. president in the new film 'The Green Lantern,' told Salon when he first received the script for the Target video that the content seemed "very awkward." When he expressed his concerns to AFTRA, a representative told him doing the video would not be a problem as long as the information was not "purposefully inaccurate," or Reitz didn't personally take a position, according to Salon's interview with the actor.

Buggs was not available for comment in the Salon article.

And Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder declined to comment on why Target decided to use union actors.

Maybe Target Corp. should consider a sequel in which the actors portrayed are actual store employees. But on second thought, any anti-union propaganda might be a moot point if workers vote to unionize come Friday (June 17).

For an informative analysis of the Target workers' unionizing efforts, see here.

 

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