wal-mart

This past week, hundreds of Wal-Mart employees and thousands of their supporters took part in historic walk-outs and demonstrations to protest the chain’s low wages and intimidation of its workers. As we told you earlier, congressman-elect Alan Grayson joined a striking employee at a Florida Wal-Mart.

Over at Democratic Underground, Grayson has written about his experience at the Florida Wal-Mart. “WalMart accounts for more than ten percent of all of the retail sales in the United States. It is the largest private employer in the world, with more than two million employees. And even though those employees comprise barely ten percent of its cost of doing business, WalMart exploits them mercilessly,” writes Grayson. “Now WalMart employees are starting to organize, starting to fight back.”

We appreciate Grayson’s support and encourage other Members of Congress to continue to speak out against Wal-Mart’s practices.

We’ve posted Grayson’s letter in its entirety below:

My Thanksgiving ai??i?? A Turkey Sandwich at WalMart

I did not spend Thanksgiving evening with my wife and my five children. I spent it, instead, handing out turkey sandwiches to workers in WalMart. And showing my support for one brave soul who walked off the job in protest against exploitation.WalMart ai???associatesai??? make an average of just more than $10 an hour. That means that if they manage to get a full 40 hours a week ai??i?? and many donai??i??t ai??i?? they get paid $1,700 a month, before taxes. Somehow, that is supposed to pay for their food, shelter, clothing and medical care, and that of their children. Quite a trick.

In state after state, the largest group of Medicaid recipients is WalMart employees. Iai??i??m sure that the same thing is true of food stamp recipients. Each WalMart ai???associateai??? costs the taxpayers an average of more than $1,000 in …

The great Wal-Mart strikes of Black Friday 2012 have begun. Workers across the nation are walking out, and thousands of Americans are expected in demonstrate in solidarity today and tomorrow.

In Orlando, Congressman-elect Alan Grayson joined the strikers. Here’s a photo of him walking Lisa Lopez off the job tonight (thanks to United for Respect at Walmart for the photo):

The bulk of walk-outs and demonstrations are expected to occur tomorrow. Click here to find one near you.

Decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, it appears that conservatives are ready to embrace Communism.

What else could explain the spree of leading conservatives — reacting to historic strikes by fed up workers — pledging to shop at Wal-Mart?

The company gets a large share of the goods it sells to consumers from the Chinese. In fact, one estimate finds that Wal-Mart alone is responsible for 11 percent of the U.S. trade deficit with China.

Here’s some of the leading conservatives who are making this de facto pledge to support Communist China:

Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party who is ironically serving as the “national chairman for the Save American Jobs Project on the American Solutions team”:

Dan Gainor, theAi??VP of Business and Culture for the Media Research Center and a frequent Fox News.com contributor. (We’re not sure why believing in God is supposed to make progressives angry.):

A Tea Party group in San Diego is urging its members to perform a “buycott” of Wal-Mart and to support the store because unions are “trying to take over” the chain. Posters at the far-right discussion board Free Republic are also pledging solidarity. One writes, “As much as I dislike shopping on any day, if these thugs strike my local walmart I will be forced to shop there on Black Friday in solidarity with freedom loving people.”

One has to wonder how supporting a corporation that gets much of its goods from a country where people are oppressed by a totalitarian government is in any way supporting freedom.

The …

On Black Friday, there are expected to be up to a thousand strikes and protests at Wal-Mart stores — a result of poor wages and benefits and union-busting at the company.

On the Today Show this morning, Wal-Mart Chief Merchandising and Marking Officer Duncan Mac Naughton appeared to discuss the strike. At one point, host Savannah Guthrie asked him if he could guarantee that there would be no retaliation against workers who protested. He dodged the question, and when she followed up, he said they would deal with each case individually:

GUTHRIE: If someone does picket who’s an employee of your store, will they face retaliation, will they be fired, will they see their hours cut down.

DUNCAN MAC NAUGHTON: Savannah, we have a really open culture, it’s all about listening to our associates. It’s based in integrity, with respect to the individual. Our operators and our store managers always want to listen to the concerns of our associates, and we do that all the time, we’ll treat each case —

GUTHRIE: So there’s no ramification if somebody protests?

DUNCAN MAC NAUGHTON: We’ll treat each case individually, Savannah.

Watch it:

Wal-Mart has already been caught telling workers in private meetings that there may be ramifications if any of them go on strike or attend protests.

Click here to find an upcoming Wal-Mart strike or protest near you.

A series of unprecedented strikes and walk-outs by Wal-Mart workers is expected to culminate in up to a thousand labor actions this week during Black Friday sales.

Although the majority of strikes have yet to occur, these historic protests are already making an impact on the way the company responds to public pressure.

If you go to the corporation’s main public relations Twitter account, @WalmartNewsroom, you’ll find a flurry of tweets from yesterday defending the company against labor criticism:

Here’s what makes this even more interesting. I used the Twitter search services Snap Bird and Socialsearching.info to search for the word “union” among the Wal-Mart account’s 1,361 tweets. The word only appeared once — yesterday, in the series of tweets seen above. Walk-outs by brave Wal-Mart workers have for the first time forced the company to publicly acknowledge unions on Twitter.

This is a small victory, but likely a sign of victories to come. Click here to find an upcoming Wal-Mart strike or protest near you. The more people who attend these events this week, the greater the chance we have of forcing Wal-Mart to treat its workers better.

In one week, Wal-Mart workers in as many as a thousand stores plan to hold protests walk-outs and other actions to disrupt the company’s busiest shopping day: Black Friday. These workers are fed up of low wages and the high level of intimidation that the company has been using against those who dare to organize.

Late yesterday, Wal-Mart filed an “unfair labor practice charge” against the main union helping organize workers to take labor actions:

Wal-Mart late on Thursday filed an unfair labor practice charge against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, or UFCW, asking the National Labor Relations Board to halt what the retailer says are unlawful attempts to disrupt its business.

“Walmart is grasping at straws,” replied UFCW Communications Director Jill Cashen. “There’s nothing in the law that gives an employer the right to silence workers and citizens.”

Needless to say, it is the height of irony for Wal-Mart to allege unfair labor practices. This is the company, after all, that shut down entire stores because workers unionized.

We’ll continue to keep you up to date on the upcoming Wal-Mart labor actions. Here’s a full list of Wal-Mart stores where protests and walk-outs are planned next week.

(Photo credit: Flickr user Monochrome)

Wal-Mart, America’s largest private employer and one of the worst union-busters in the country, is facing a worker rebellion at its stores and suppliers nationwide.

Earlier this week, workers at Los Angeles Wal-Mart warehouses and Seattle stores walked off the job. The Nation’s Josh Eidelson reports today that workers in Dallas joined these strikers:

This morning, at 10 AM local time, Dallas Walmart store workers are headed back to the picket line. Theirs is the latest in aAi??string of strikesAi??that hit a California warehouse Wednesday and Seattle stores on Thursday. Thereai??i??s more where that came from: On a Thursday call with reporters, union-backed Walmart worker groups said to expect a thousand strikes or demonstrations spread over nine days, culminating in an unprecedented array of ai???Black Fridayai??? disruptions. That news follows a major legal settlement by a Walmart contractor that organizers credited to a 2011 sit-in at Hersheyai??i??s Chocolate.

We’ll keep you up to date as we approach Black Friday, which is expected to be the largest day of strikes in Wal-Mart’s history.

UPDATE: The Corporate Action Network has set up a page for Americans to ai???adopt a Wal-Martai??? to show up and support workers who will be walking out on Black Friday.

(Photo credit: Flickr user Monochrome)

Wal-Mart has been hit with an unprecedented series of strikes and walk-outs in the past few months, the first major labor actions in the company’s history.

Labor journalist Josh Eidelson has the scoop on how a group of workers in the company’s Los Angeles warehouses will be hitting the picket lines on Thursday:

Thursday, Walmart warehouse workers are headed back to the picket line. At 8 AM Pacific, twenty-some workers in Mira Loma, California plan to launch a one-day walk-out which could spread to more workers, including retail employees in Walmart stores. Thursdayai??i??s strike will be the latest in an unprecedented wave of work stoppages throughout the retail giantai??i??s US supply chain. It follows strikes by seafood workers in June, by warehouse workers in September, and by 160 retail workers in 12 states last month. It comes a week before Black Friday, the post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza that workers have pledgedai??i??barring concessions from the companyai??i??will bring their biggest disruptions yet.

ai???Hopefully it will make a dent in their productionai??i??ai??? said Raymond Castillo, ai???and it gets their attention, that weai??i??re not playing around.ai??? Castillo and other Mira Loma workers struck in September, and voted Sunday to do it again on Thursday. According to Castillo, workers started organizing because of unsafe and unsanitary conditions: crooked ramps caused serious injuries; workersai??i?? drinking water came from a hose. The organizing brought retaliation, which inspired a strike, which drew more punishment. ai???Since weai??i??ve all been retaliated against,ai??? said Castillo, ai???it was a pretty easy decision for all of us to go back on strike.ai???

Recall that Wal-Mart’s operations in Los Angeles were the center of controversy earlier this year when they were caught hiring a public relations and lobbying firm that spied on organizing workers. That level …

Black Friday — the discount shopping day after Thanksgiving — is the busiest shopping day of the year. Last year, Americans spent a record $52.4 billion on that day.

On a conference call today, we heard from Wal-Mart workers and labor leaders — who’ve already been involved in aAi??series of historic informal strikes — Ai??that plan to use this day to send a message to America’s top private employer, Wal-Mart.

Across the country, networks of workers are coming together and planning to walk out on Black Friday, disrupting the company’s operations.

“A few months ago I lost my house, [the] co-manager said couldn’t I just go live in a homeless shelter?” recountedAi??Cory Parker, a man who has worked at Wal-Mart for nine months and who has recently gotten involved in Wal-Mart actions, on the call. “After that it made me want to fight for people who are going through that.”

The Corporate Action Network has set up a page for Americans to “adopt a Wal-Mart” to show up and support workers who will be walking out on Black Friday.

Recall that it would only cost Wal-Mart $12 per shopper every year to pay all of its workers a living wage. Federal Reserve documents revealed by Matthew Stoller indicate that Wal-Mart did indeed slighlty raise wages in 2006 in response to protests.

These walk-outs and protests are potentially game-changing. We here at the Progressive Change CampaignAi??CommitteeAi??will keep you informed on these Wal-Mart actions. If you’re not already on our mailing list, sign up at the top to get updates.

Paying decent wages would actually cost Wal-Mart and its shoppers next to nothing. So why don’t they do it?

Wal-Mart is facing some of the most aggressive labor action’s in the company’s history, as it has been hit with a wave of walk-outs and many workers are threatening to walk offthe job on the busiest day of the year, Black Friday.

Wal-Mart claims that it pays its workers well, despite the fact that its CEO earns 1,167 times as much as an average worker at the company and its workers earn “12.4% less than retail workers as a whole and 13% less than large retail workers in general.”

Over at The Guardian, Paul Harris reports on the sad state of workers at a Wal-Mart warehouse in Elwood, Illinois, the site of some of the first strikes. Harris interviews one worker who says some employees have resorted to sleeping in tents to get by, while others slept in abandoned homes:

Phillip Bailey knows there are people worse off than him working inside the gigantic WalmartAi??warehouse that dominates the small town of Elwood in rural Illinois.

He sleeps at a Catholic hostel in nearby Joliet and so has a solid roof over his head after a day of helping the endless flow of consumer goods supplying Walmart stores across America. Not all his colleagues can say that. One squatted in abandoned houses. Another lived rough in the woods in between work shifts. “He just set up a tent in there for a few weeks,” Bailey said.

This is not the sign of a company that treats its workers well.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on the historic labor actions that are holding Wal-Mart accountable.

Paying decent wages would actually cost Wal-Mart and its shoppers next to nothing. So why don’t they do it?

Wal-Mart workers are speaking out — and walking out — as they last week took part in the first walkouts and strikes in the company’s history. They want fair pay and a right to organize without being retaliated against.

Some apologists for Wal-Mart argues that the chain’s bottom of the barrel wages — the average sales associate there earns $8.80, as opposed to the CEO who earns 1,167 times more — allow it to be successful and that if it paid its workers more, shoppers would stop coming.

But that just isn’t bared out by the facts. One year ago, a UC Berkeley study found that the company passed the entire cost of higher wages onto its consumers, it would cost them very little:

Using Walmart’s figures on U.S. sales and customers, we find that the average customer spendsAi??$43.95 per shopping trip, and makes 27 shopping trips per year,Ai??spending $1,187 annually at theAi??store. The 46 cent increase amounts to a 1.1 percent increase in prices. For the averageAi??shopper, this would result in a price increase of $12.49 a year.

That’s right. Presuming that the company decided to pass on all the costs of higher wages to consumers, it would cost the average shopper only $12.49 a year for all of Wal-Mart’s employees to be paid at least a living wage.

But Wal-Mart shouldn’t have to pass those costs on. It’s the world’s most prosperous employer, and it can easily pocket the cost of $12 per shopper — or an average of 46 cents per shopping trip — to pay its employees living wages without raising prices at all.

So now the ball is Wal-Mart’s court. They have …

New documents reveal that Wal-Mart raised its wages in 2006 as a result of worker protests. (Photo credit: Flickr user Monochrome)

Over the past two weeks, Wal-Mart stores and suppliers have been faced with sporadic one-day strikes all over the country, the first in the company’s 50-year history. Workers are now threatening to walk out on the store’s busiest shopping day of the year: Black Friday.

Many observers are wondering whether these small strikes and walk outs will have an impact on the notoriously anti-labor company. Matt Stoller at Naked Capitalism has the details on how past protests have actually dramatically improved things at Wal-Mart stores.

Stoller points to a document that has a transcript of the remarks of t. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole where he says a Wal-Mart contact told him there were raises in 700 Wal-Mart stores in 2006 thanks to the “social/political” protests against the company:

Poole offered some very different and shocking news, ai???My Wal-Mart contact also said that ai???Wal-Mart is in the process of raising starting wages in about 700 stores. This is the first time in eight years of talking with him that Iai??i??ve heard any comment like that. He said that some of the raises are part of the Wal-Mart, Iai??i??ll call it ai???Social/politicalai??? agenda because of all the controversy about Wal-Mart.ai???

Recall that 2006 was the year after the premiere of a hard-hitting documentary about the store, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. It was also the same year that the chain was facing a massive worker campaign organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) called “Wake Up Walmart.”

While Wal-Mart stores remain absent of unions, this document proves an important point: the store is willing to respond to protests by …

Wal-Mart is one corporation that pays its workers the worst. (Photo credit: Flickr user Monochrome)

Fed up with being retaliated against for organizing for their rights, Wal-Mart workers in over a dozen cities took part in one-day strikes against the company. These workers now have a new ultimatum. If the company does not stop with its crackdowns on organizing workers, they will walk out on the busiest day of the year: Black Friday.

This is a drastic move, and would be potentially game-changing when it comes to the relationship between Wal-Mart and its employees. That relationship has traditionally been one where the company recruits workers, crushes their unions, and pays them as little as possible.

Here’s one illustration of that. Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke received compensation worth $18.1 million in 2011. Meanwhile, the average sales associate at the company was paid $8.81 an hour and a $15,000 annual salary (a full time work week at the company is 34 hours), according to independent market research group IBISWorld.

That means that the Duke earns 1,167 times as much as the average worker in his company. And even in times of so much inequality, that’s actually a CEO-to-worker pay ratio that’s way out of sync with the market average. The average CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 209.4-to-1 in 2011, meaning that Wal-Mart isn’t only a very unequal corporation, but that it’s actually almost six times as unequal as the rest of America’s corporations. (By the way, the ratio in 1965 was 18.3-to-1!)

As the brave Wal-Mart workers who are organizing for their rights continue to speak out in the coming days, we should take these numbers into account and stand with them.

Various workers at Wal-Mart stores and suppliers in over 12 cities have engaged in walkouts and one-day strikes. They’re protesting the chain’s crackdown on their organization OUR Walmart, which, while not being a formal labor union, is still serving as an organizing vehicle for workers to make their grievances known.

One place these grievances aren’t being heard is the courts. Last year, a class action law suit alleging gender discrimination that would’ve allowed 1.5 million female employees to sue Wal-Mart was thrown out by the Supreme Court.

Now, there are a new flurry of suits related to Wal-Mart’s gender discrimination. Here’s the case of one woman who was discriminated against for years:

When a manager told Christina Going in 2000 that she made less money hourly than her male Walmart counterparts because “single moms like you don’t deserve to make as much” because “you should be in a two-income household,” she figured that level of sexism had to be rare.

“I was flabbergasted,” said Going, who now lives in Palm Beach County. “He was basically telling me I should be married, and that women aren’t supposed to support their families. But I figured this guy was just one jerk.”

But, she said, her four-year career at a rural location of the megastore in Hendry County proved to her that this level of discrimination was in fact endemic among Walmart’s management.

Over four years, she saw many men with less experience get promoted over her and no one listened when she demanded she make as much as men doing the same job, she said. She quit in 2003.

Today, the corporation is having its shareholders meeting in Bentonsville, Arkansas. It’s unlikely that the voices of underpaid and discriminated against workers will be heard there. But through …

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 …