Santa wants Walmart to pay its workers $25,000 a year.
As expected, Walmart is facing widespread protests on Black Friday; as has been increasingly the case in recent months, the protests have involved acts of civil disobedience, with striking workers and their allies taking arrest in
Alexandria, Virginia;
Dallas, Texas;
Ontario, California;
Chicago, Illinois; and more.
Walmart is trying to counter the protests with a PR offensive insisting that unions paid people to protest—not strike, but simply protest—last year on Black Friday. The reality, Josh Eidelson reports, is that:
According to the NLRB memo, before last year’s Black Friday walkout, “the Union advertised a $50 gift card to the first 700 employees who walked off the job on Black Friday.” The NLRB noted a campaign e-mail which said “Going on strike is never an easy decision. We are all barely getting by as it is…the first 700 Associates who sign up to strike will get a $50 gift card for us to use to buy groceries for our families.” Rejecting a Wal-Mart allegation that the gift cards were illegal, the NLRB associate general counsel concluded that the offer “did not restrain or coerce employees,” but rather represented a “non excessive strike benefit designed to reimburse employees for some of their lost wages if they struck, and was non discriminatory.”
Protesters who don't work for Walmart were not included in the offer, and a $50 gift card might cover lost wage for a day on strike, but certainly won't cover the kind of retaliation Walmart strikers know they're likely to face. Striking workers, meanwhile, tell the
stories that have become too familiar:
Gail Todd, 36, who makes $16,000 a year working at a Walmart store in Landover, Md., as a part-time customer service worker, says she gets food stamps, Medicaid and housing assistance. The mother of three, whose husband is a manager at a fast-food franchise, planned to take part in today's labor protests to ask for a pay hike. Todd, an Our Walmart member, also said her weekly hours are unpredictable, making it hard to budget her finances.
"As a mother, it's a struggle -- it's a struggle because I don't know what my paycheck will look like in two weeks. I have to pay rent, light bills, class fees," she said. "I have to ask, do I buy food or pay the rent or light bill, or do I pay the class fee that my daughter needs for her to get her high school diploma?"
Come below the fold for tweets and pictures from Walmart protests around the nation.
CHI WMT Strikers n Allies taking arrest. Standing up to live better. #WalmartStrikers @ChangeWalmart @ForRespect
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— @feenjusticia
@AFTunion President @rweingarten joined #WalmartStrikers and The Grinch in White Plains.
http://t.co/... @ForRespect
— @ForRespect
We won't stop until Walmart workers get paid enough to support our families. #walmartstrikers @changewalmart
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— @ForRespect