Wal-Mart is America’s biggest employer. It’s also one of its most anti-union, and has worked hard to stop workers from organizing. In 2000, ai???when a small meatcutting department successfully organized a union at a Walmart store in Texas, Wal-Mart responded a week later by announcing the phase-out of its meatcutting departments entirely.ai??? When a branch in Quebec, Canada, voted to unionize, the company immediately shut down the store.
But you can’t keep workers down forever. Josh Eidelson at Salon reports about a huge wave of one-day strikes that have hit Wal-Mart stores and suppliers nationwide:
For the second time in five days ai??i?? and also the second time in Walmartai??i??s five decades ai??i?? workers at multiple US Walmart stores are on strike.Ai??This morning, workers walked off the job in Dallas,Ai??Texas andAi??Laurel, Maryland; Walmart store workers in additional cities are expected to join the strike in the coming hours. No end date has been announced; some plan to remain on strike at least through tomorrow, when theyai??i??ll join other Walmart workers for a demonstration outside the companyai??i??s annual investor meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas. Todayai??i??s is the latest in a unprecedented wave of Walmart supply chain strikes: From shrimp workers in Louisiana, to warehouse workers in California and Illinois, to Walmart store employees in three states ai??i?? and counting.
ai???A lot of associates, we have to use somewhat of a buddy system,ai??? Dallas worker Colby Harris said last night. ai???We loan each other money during non-paycheck weeks just to make it through to the next week when we get paid. Because we donai??i??t have enough money after paying bills to even eat lunch.ai??? Harris, whoai??i??s now on strike, said that after three years at Walmart, he makes $8.90 an hour in the produce department, and workers at his store have faced ai???constant retaliationai??? for speaking up.
The strikes, which began last Thursday, are being spearheaded by a year-old organization called OUR Walmart, which was set up by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. These work stoppages are aimed at winning better job security and benefits, and so far none of these workers have gone the further step of organizing as a formal union.
“I’m striking because I was retaliated against for speaking out,” said one Los Angeles Wal-Mart employee, Monique Velasquez, who had her hours cut from 30 a week to eight after the company discovered that she was involved in OUR Walmart activities.
These historic work stoppages and strikes may seem small, but they are the first major labor actions in Wal-Mart’s half-century long history. Let’s hope they succeed in forcing this corporate behemoth to take worker demands seriously.
Walmart workers, I applaud you and support you! Strikes and work stoppages are the only course that can be effective against a corporation that ABUSES its employees so blatantly and outrageously. Unionizing IS the next step.
For close to a decade now, I have personally boycotted Walmart because of its policies and have tried to persuade my friends to boycott it as well. We refer to the corporation as “Evilmart.”
Its about time!!! Stand strong!!! We are with you!
YES YES YES YES THIS IS EXCITING!! When I see Walmart employees on strike, I will gladly join them. What courage!
Drop their weekly hours to 4 so you don’t have to pay unemployment. Hire more loyal employees. Unions have destroyed the US auto industry. Walmart is smart to not let it destroy them. They knew the pay when they got hired. Why do they deserve more?? If they want more, work harder, longer or smarter. Walmart owes them nothing but what is agreed upon at the time of employment. If you have marketable skills, you can find a better paying job. Oh wait, you work at walmart.
Very Sympathetic, you piece of shit. People like you should be taken my hordes of poverty level people and beaten to death to show you what the masses can do to the comfortable cocky spineless wuss like yourself.
I totally agree with you. I refuse to shop at Wally World and aggressively try and get my friends to stop shopping there. It is worth it for me to pay a little extra at another store than to darken the doors of Wally World.
You are a disgusting, selfish and pathetic individual. We can surmise that you are part of the 1%. No one in the 99% would utter something so absolutely heartless and unsympathetic.
Why not class action for “constructive dismissal”
3000+ stores, 1.2+ million employees…it is going to take a lot of work. Until I see an empty Walmart parking lot and empty aisles…then…I will believe that Americans are in support of Walmart workers.
As a former Walmart associate, I recall the first year my store remained opened during Thanksgiving Day….of course, I had to work. It was the first super center here…a little old white woman comes in…to shop…she is quite sympathetic and disturbed at the same time… that Walmart is opened and that I am forced to work…but there she was…shopping at Walmart on Thanksgiving day! Go figure….
I do not shop at Walmart as often…since leaving…not because of any of their practices, but because I have found that many competitors have better prices, and smaller crowds.
Back in 2000 in Ontario Canada I was angry when management at a Wal-Mart was consistently asking me to work after my shift, (No longer being paid) and the few times I said no got me “Couching.” (Concealing’s/Warnings of termination) One day after a year of promises to replace a tool that was putting us at risk that we used daily, I decided I had enough and went around to my fellow workers with a piece of paper that said: Your name, Union Yes, Union No. After getting lots of signtues with a Union Yes management noticed and asked what I wanted. I told them I want everyone in my area to get a $1.00 an hour raise and the tool replaced by tomorrow. We all got a raise and the tool was replaced in an hour. The months that followed forced me to resign because I was getting shit every day, (For things I never did) my hours cut back to 10 a week and asked to work days that I would not get paid.
The positive: Back when I worked at Wal-Mart you could buy stock from your pay cheque and Wal-Mart added 15%: It helped me to save a ton and when I sold I made on average $12.00 a share.
Would I have done it again.
Yes, but this time more stock buying and union paper right to the UAW.