...Wal-Mart...[decided] in February 2000 to convert many of its stores' meat departments so their employees would simply sell prepackaged meats, rather than cutting it themselves. This was significant because 10 meat department employees at Wal-Mart's Jacksonville, Texas, store had elected United Food and Commercial Workers Local 540 as their bargaining representative earlier that month. Wal-Mart won because the National Labor Relations Board agreed that, because of the conversion, the meat department had become an inappropriate bargaining unit, meaning Wal-Mart had no general duty to bargain with the UFCW. But the NLRB said Wal-Mart nevertheless must bargain with the union over the effects of the conversion on those meat department employees, and on Friday, a federal appeals court upheld both of the board's decisions.