Chad Jordan chose to forgo a soapbox to make his point.

Donning a Sam’s Club uniform, the human resources junior and his family appear on a new billboard advertisement at the side of Interstate 69 near Potterville.

And to the right of Jordan on the sign, butting up against his red vest, reads, “We deserve better,” a reference to his efforts in the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

Jordan, 29, has worked at Sam’s Club in Lansing for 11 years. He stocks the frozen food section of the wholesale business. Sam’s Club is a division of Wal-Mart.

He also is involved with the union, which represents employees in other retail outlets and is looking to become involved in Jordan’s store to improve workers’ rights there.

Jordan said he first became involved in the union a year ago after seeing his fellow employees’ desires for more benefits in the workplace.

“The treatment that employees have isn’t consistent across the board,” he said. “Some people get special treatment, some people don’t.”

Such special treatment included raises and promotions, Jordan said. He also said he was bothered by the price of health insurance being paid by employees.

Jordan said he pays $4,500 a year for health insurance covering himself, his wife and his two children.

“Now you can do some easy math,” he said. “A person making $8 an hour or $9 can barely afford that.”

Since the first call, Jordan has become more involved in the union, which paid for the advertisement - a way he pushes for a unionization vote in his store.

The store would become the first union-represented Wal-Mart-owned store in the United States, and Jordan has received mixed results so far in his efforts.

“The negative response is from people who think I’m trying to mess things up for them,” he said. “They think that everything is great already.

“The company has told them that the union can’t promise you anything, and they show them examples of worst-case cases.”

But Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jessica Moser said most Wal-Mart employees don’t want unions involved in their stores - a fact represented by the lack of union representation in all 3,200 of Wal-Mart’s U.S. businesses.

“It’s not because they haven’t tried,” she said. “Union membership is at an all-time low, and they see our associates as targets to increase their membership, and our associates have seen that and said no.”

Moser said Wal-Mart prides itself on its benefits packages, offering it to both full- and part-time employees and that a majority of employees come to Wal-Mart for those benefits.

Giving employees any more would hurt the business, she said.

“The rising cost of health insurance is something every company is facing,” she said. “And what we are continuing to do is to work to give every employee we have access (to health care).”

But union officials continue to push for more health care, citing the company’s new position atop the Fortune 500 as proof that more can be done, said John Cakmakci, executive vice-president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

“The message is, we feel, pretty poignant,” he said. “This is a company that made more money than General Motors (Corp.), and I think people are starting to think, ‘We do deserve better.’”

Cakmakci said the union, which represents employees in Boise-based Albertson’s Inc. stores, is looking to extend its influence to the Wal-Mart community but hasn’t had much luck.

“It depends on how you’re defining a victory,” he said. “If you’re talking about winning a vote, we haven’t at all