Breaking: Massive Black Friday strike and arrests planned, as workers defy Wal-Mart
Source: Salon.com
Exclusive: Wal-Mart strikers risk arrest in nine cities today. Here's what it means for future of U.S. work
Josh Eidelson
Defying the nations top employer and a business model that defines the new U.S. economy, Wal-Mart employees and allies will try to oust shopping headlines with strike stories, and throw a retail giant off its heels on what should be its happiest day of the year. By days end, organizers expect 1,500 total protests in cities ranging from Los Angeles, Calif., to Wasilla, Alaska, including arrests in nine cities: Seacaucus, New Jersey; Alexandria, Virginia; Dallas; Minneapolis; Chicago; Seattle; and Ontario, San Leandro, and Sacramento, California.
Like my mom always said, You see something thats not right, its your turn to fix it, said 45-year-old Chicago Wal-Mart employee Myron Byrd, who plans to be arrested in his first act of civil disobedience today. And you cant do it by yourself you have to do it with others. Byrd said he was driven to action by high school-level pay and workplace disrespect, and inspired by the courage of fellow workers and his mothers civil rights legacy. Im sacrificing myself, along with others, to do this, he told me, to show Wal-Mart that hey, Im not afraid, they not afraid, we not afraid. In an e-mail to reporters, Wal-Mart spokesperson David Tovar said that planned arrests were just another way to make these orchestrated events seem newsworthy, and that these arent real protests by real Walmart associates.
Whether todays action is bigger than last years Black Friday showdown remains to be seen, and likely depends on how you count: Would more protests, and more protesters, make up for a retaliation-fueled reduction in the number of Wal-Mart employees who go on strike to join them?
Wal-Marts first 50 years were free of Black Friday strikes indeed, free of any coordinated walkouts in the United States. Then, 14 months ago, a wave of Wal-Mart supply chain strikes that started with crawfish-peeling guest workers and subcontracted warehouse workers spread to include the corporations retail employees, first in Southern California and then in cities across the country. Strikers were members of OUR Walmart, a fledgling non-union workers group that first announced itself in 2011; it draws funding, staffing and direction from the United Food & Commercial Workers union.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/29/breaking_massive_black_friday_strike_and_arrests_planned_as_workers_defy_wal_mart/
The rest of my dispatches from the day will all be online at http://www.salon.com/writer/josh_eidelson/.
Josh
Protesters gather outside a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Store for a peaceful demonstration Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013, in Chicago. (Credit: AP/Charles Rex Arbogast)
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)Best wishes for workers, may the wages increase to at least a living wage, and may they be treated with more respect.
underthematrix
(5,811 posts)like the plague
Kingofalldems
(38,422 posts)must protect Walmart's property rights.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)Thank you, Omaha Steve. nt
red dog 1
(27,771 posts)Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FLA) tells Salon:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014660235
rustbeltvoice
(429 posts)Our national economy has changed. We are not in the days of the founding of the CIO. John L. Lewis, and the GM sit-down strike in Flint Michigan benefited millions of industrial workers, bringing them into a well paid working class. The reactionary counterstrike following Reaganism has taken much away. When, the president of the PATCO air traffic controllers was bound in chains before federal court, it was a turning point. Perhaps, it is now the workers (or servants) of the monolithic service trade of Walmart, McDonalds, and the like that will have to lead a counter on these multi-billionaires.
Photographs of a protestor against Walmart in Ontario California was partly the impetus for me to write this essay: Black Friday.
annm4peace
(6,119 posts)(I had to work till noon today and when got off the freeway, the police had shut down the Snelling 3 blocks from this action and 3 blocks on either on either side of University also, I had to go 3 streets over and around a barracked to get near Snelling. I got to the corner just has police started to arrest the activists. Thankfully the police did it one at a time and slowly. I think it took about 1/2 hour and then off marching past Walmart and Target, all in 20 degree weather.)
Story for The UpTake by Sheila Regan/Video by Bill Sorem
One of those arrested at University and Snelling was Jessica English of Take Action Minnesota, who said she once became homeless working in retail as a single mom. Im here to fight to make sure that doesnt happen to other moms, she said.
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http://advocate.stpaulunions.org/2013/11/29/call-to-end-poverty-wages-rings-out-at-twin-cities-black-friday-protests/
annm4peace
(6,119 posts)these brave protesters are in the Heart of the Beast.
Protesters held signs in front of the Shaw avenue Walmart in Clovis today (Black Friday) as part of a nationwide effort to hold Walmart accountable for low wages.
Our Walmart member Anthony Goytia said I am a father of three. With the insufficient hours and the low pay that I get at Walmart, I will make around $12,000 this year. I dont need cable or to own a house, but I shouldnt have to rely on food stamps or donate plasma just to feed my kids when I have a job.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.748919178470449.1073741841.147659788596394&type=1