Protesting Activists' Firings, Walmart Workers Plan the Biggest Mobilization Since Black Friday
Source: The Nation
Josh Eidelson
Walmart workers and supporters plan to mount protests in fifteen cities Thursday, a mobilization that the union-backed group OUR Walmart expects will be its largest since last Novembers Black Friday strike. This weeks rallies follow an August 22 civil disobedience action at which the campaign announced a Labor Day deadline for Walmart to raise its wages to at least $25,000 per year, and reverse the terminations of twenty workers who participated in a June strike.
As The Nation has reported, nearly eighty OUR Walmart members have been disciplined by the company since returning from the June walkout. OUR Walmarts response to the alleged illegal retaliation has included protest rallies, pressure on Yahoo! CEO and Walmart board member Marissa Mayer and outreach to members of Congress. The campaign has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that the discipline violated federal labor law. Walmart has denied wrongdoing; a spokesperson told The Nation last month that no associates were disciplined for participating in any specific protests. The company did not respond to a Monday request for comment regarding the strikers demands and their deadline, which passed yesterday without any public concession by Walmart.
A Sunday mass e-mail to supporters from the allied Making Change at Walmart campaign referenced intensified actions nationwide Thursday if the retail giant didnt respond by Labor Day. Fired employee Barbara Collins told The Nation prior to last months civil disobedience that if they dont reinstate us, our actions are going to be bigger and stronger every time, and this is just the beginning.
Thursdays actions will include a march through downtown Los Angeles to the site of a proposed Walmart in Chinatown, and a demonstration in Washington, DC, where all sides are awaiting word on whether Mayor Vince Gray will veto a bill (passed by City Council in July but formally sent to his desk last Friday) that would require large retailers like Walmart to pay employees at least $12.50 in total hourly compensation. Thursday actions are also planned for cities in the East, West, South and Midwest: Baton Rouge, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Orlando, Sacramento, San Francisco and Seattle.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/175995/protesting-activists-firings-walmart-workers-plan-biggest-mobilization-black-friday#
Sixty-four-year-old David Cruse, who worked at the Walmart in Baldwin Hills for eight years but has retired, participates in the Walmart strike on October 4, 2012. (Courtesy of Matt Hamilton via Flickr)
chervilant
(8,267 posts)I hope Wallyworld has to meet ALL their demands!
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Earth_First
(14,910 posts)Proud to support these fellow working class heros!
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
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I like this part:
"require large retailers like Walmart to pay employees at least $12.50"
To hit small mom and pop stores with a wage increase like that could well bankrupt them,
but for giant's like Walmart et al?
GIVE 'ER!!
CC
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Hekate
(90,202 posts)Utah Philips sings this mighty song
Solidarity Forever
A Song by Ralph Chaplin
©Ralph Chaplin 1915
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one
For the Union makes us strong
Chorus
Solidarity forever, solidarity forever
Solidarity forever
For the Union makes us strong
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong
It is we who ploughed the prairies, built the cities where they trade
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid
Now we stand outcast and starving 'mid the wonders we have made
But the union makes us strong
All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone
We have laid the wide foundations, built it skyward stone by stone
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own
While the union makes us strong
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn
We can break their haughty power gain our freedom when we learn
That the Union makes us strong
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold
Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousandfold
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the Union makes us strong
http://unionsong.com/u025.html
Scuba
(53,475 posts)jdadd
(1,313 posts)It's been 10 years, since I darkened the door of a Walmart *