Community | October 09, 2012 | 137 comments

Wallmart Strikes to more states

source: http://www.salon.com/2012/10/09/walmart_strikes_spread_to_more_states/

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letsliveinpeace

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/09/walmart_strikes_spread_to_more_states/

For the second time in five days – and also the second time in Walmart’s five decades – workers at multiple US Walmart stores are on strike. This morning, workers walked off the job in Dallas, Texas and 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 they’ll join other Walmart workers for a demonstration outside the company’s annual investor meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas. Today’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 – and counting.

“A lot of associates, we have to use somewhat of a buddy system,” Dallas worker Colby Harris said last night. “We loan each other money during non-paycheck weeks just to make it through to the next week when we get paid. Because we don’t have enough money after paying bills to even eat lunch.” Harris, who’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 “constant retaliation” for speaking up.

On Thursday, as first reported at Salon, southern California Walmart store workers staged a day-long walkout of their own. Organizers say over sixty workers from nine stores signed in as on strike. About thirty of them were from the same store in Pico Rivera, where strikers and supporters rallied with labor leaders, clergy, politicians. “I’m still thrilled about what happened,” said Harris, who flew in for last week’s walkout. “And it’s given me a lot more energy and a lot more drive.” Other workers were visiting from further away than Texas: When the striking workers returned to work Friday morning, international Walmart workers marched into their nine stores with them, carrying their own countries’ flags.

Reached by email last night, Walmart spokesperson Dan Fogleman said the company “has some of the best jobs in the retail industry – good pay, affordable benefits and the chance for advancement.” Asked about last week’s walkout, he said, “There is nothing new, nor historic, about the fact that labor unions want to organize Walmart. Their rally was just the latest publicity stunt by [the United Food & Commercial Workers union] to seek media attention in order to further its political agenda and financial objectives.” Fogleman said that Walmart “had a few people go out to join the rally – very few when you consider the more than 12,000 people we employ in LA County…. This event was not a factor.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/09/walmart_strikes_spread_to_more_states/
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137 comments // Wallmart Strikes to more states

  • WalmartRamen
    • -1
      WalmartRamen  
    • Mishima:

      Walmart makes $100,000,000,000,000 in all related to walmart, but yet pays the workers $6.88 after taxes!

      Money hoopla! What does the worker see of it? And why do we all have to pay for the workers living!

    • 7 months ago
  • WalmartRamen
    • -1
      WalmartRamen  
    • Mishima:

      If you are a dentist and PULL IN $500,000 a year but after paying the nurse, rent, materials that cost, say, $250,000, how much is your income?
      after the fact 80% of the people coming to you are uninsured & can't pay!

      Do you pass on the cost to the others, making the cost so high 99% of them will say why do I have insurance I can't afford to use it! Now how much is your income?

    • 7 months ago
  • WalmartRamen
  • Mishima
    • +1
      Mishima [removed]  
    • WalmartRamen:

      They gave $2 BILLION. As I wrote before, that would be the equivalent of someone who cleared about $60,000 (A unionized teacher from Chicago, earns much more, for example) giving about $8,000 to charity.

      What would you say to that teacher? Would you readily codemn him? Would you impugn his character and claim he is just trying to impress people or get some kind of status or something? Would you ascribe nasty motives to that teacher? Can you answer the question?

    • 7 months ago
  • Mishima
  • Mishima
    • +1
      Mishima [removed]  
    • WalmartRamen:

      I wrote a list of the LOWEST paid employees.

      Next point: People are not COERCED to work for Walmart. I chose not to work for them. I have nothing against them and even admire and respect the founders, of course. But there is other work I have chosen to do. If a person works for a company, he makes a conscious choice. You seem to presenting it as though Walmart is OBLIGED to pay a certain amount and FORCES people to work there.

    • 7 months ago
  • Mishima
  • hektic
    • +1
      hektic  

    • I'm all for this, clearly very pro-union but.. this will not end well for the employees. They as a company have actually closed down stores for getting enough employees to sign onto a union. They rather lose the location than have a union in their stores. I guarantee everyone one of those employees that went on strike will lose their job in the coming months.. with bullshit super technical things that can give you a "strike"... that everyone does on a daily basis but they can technically fire you for. Hell I got fired from wal-mart back in college for a "lunch exception", which basically was I worked over the time allowed in which I didn't have to take a lunch by 1 minute, I kid you not.. 1 minute.

    • 7 months ago
  • cmc101
  • SIBob
  • dcrog
    • +1
      dcrog  
    • cmc101:

      Smart business practice actually, it sends a chilling message to the rest of the associates that if you try this, you'll be out of a job as well. It's quite simple actually, it's the "frog in the water" illustration of incremental change. Just as the frog thrown into a pot of luke warm water on the stove gets comfortable, he eventually dies when the water temperature increases, if one store falls to unionized interference, the rest will soon follow. They merely want to cut the tumor off their ass before it grows into a big problem later.

    • 7 months ago
  • dcrog
    • +1
      dcrog  
    • hektic:

      Smart business practice actually, it sends a chilling message to the rest of the associates that if you try this, you'll be out of a job as well. It's quite simple actually, it's the "frog in the water" illustration of incremental change. Just as the frog thrown into a pot of luke warm water on the stove gets comfortable, he eventually dies when the water temperature increases, if one store falls to unionized interference, the rest will soon follow. They merely want to cut the tumor off their ass before it grows into a big problem later.

    • 7 months ago
  • WalmartRamen
    • +1
      WalmartRamen  

    • Thanks for doing the story. I am not on the PC 100% of the time I work.
      If anyone wants to know the data why Walmart is bad the info is at:

      *** http://home.dbdbdugbug.operaunite.com/W/content ***

      Data like a mind blower retire from your job & get
      "Ms. Brewer will also be eligible to receive an annual equity award. For fiscal 2013, this award, if approved by the CNGC, will be comprised of performance shares with a target value of $2,625,000, which provide the right to receive shares of the Company’s common stock, par value $0.10 per share (“Common Stock”), if certain performance goals to be established by the CNGC are achieved over a three-year performance period, and restricted shares of Common Stock with a value of $875,000 on the date of grant, which will vest on the third anniversary of the date of grant, provided that Ms. Brewer continues to be employed by the Company on that vesting date. Ms. Brewer will also receive two additional awards of performance shares in connection with her promotion effective February 1, 2012, subject to approval of the CNGC. The first additional performance share award will have a target value of approximately $1,846,952, and will vest on the first anniversary of the grant date. The second additional performance share award will have a target value of approximately $1,797,014, and will vest on the second anniversary of the grant date. "

      http://home.dbdbdugbug.operaunite.com/W/content/FACTS/Form%208-K.htm

    • 7 months ago
  • Mishima
  • WalmartRamen
    • +1
      WalmartRamen  

    • "David Tovar, the retailer's vice president of communications, said the unhappy strikers aren't representative of our entire associate base."

      ***Many workers do & work them selves into the ground, while their boss laughs at them. Many don't have a clue, just Get er done attitude. Not a clue their manager at Walmart gets a 160% of their income bonus! Thats like a $230,000 $300,000+ pay for the year.
      A Walmart workers makes like $17,000 a year. Or $6.88 after taxes.
      My town the pay is around $7.25 to $8 an HR.

      You run in to those kind of workers a lot at any work place.
      Their more beaten into the ground!
      ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM7YqsJyV0s )

      For those don't know how Walmart works, there are now jet's full of
      Walmart executives that will go to those stores.
      That will take all the workers discount cards.
      Pull out their profiles of the workers. Yes each worker has a profile at work!
      To see which one is the trouble maker & should be watched.
      Walmart in the past has sent a "Black van" to many workers homes.
      Spying on them at home it has been in a court case about it in the past.

      As for the rest the UFCW knows what is to come & is ready!


      "We do surveys and our associate satisfaction scores have been improving over the past couple years, which runs counter to what a few workers who show up at events that the unions put them up to would say," said Tovar. He said Walmart's employee turnover rate is lower than the retail industry average.

      Harris, who works in the produce department in Lancaster, Texas, belongs to OUR Walmart, the UFCW-backed worker organization that planned Tuesday's strike in Dallas and the others across the country. Harris said it's not just the wages that bother him. Walmart harasses and fires workers who join labor groups or complain about company policies, he said. "But I'd rather lose my job than be treated like this."

      Tovar said Walmart has a policy of listening to complaints from workers. "We have an open-door policy," he said. "If you have any kind of issue you should bring it forward to your manager and if it isn't resolved to your satisfaction you can go to the next level of management."

      Walmart also disputed the UFCW's claim that the strikes this week were the first ever. "The UFCW has done these same publicity stunts in the past," said Tovar, citing a 2006 walkout at a Walmart store in Hialeah Gardens, Fla.

      However, the walkout in Hialeah Gardens was not exactly an organized union strike. In that case, workers with no ties to union groups spontaneously walked out of a store after an abrupt scheduling change, according to reports from the Miami Herald and Bloomberg news. Tuesday's strikes, meanwhile, had been planned for weeks.

      "They say [these strikes] are an attempt to get attention," said Harris. "But if we were getting the attention we deserved, we wouldn't be protesting." He added: "I'm not being paid for these days. We're taking off work to protest -- obviously there must be something wrong."

      Non-union workers employed in Illinois and California warehouses owned by Walmart also went on strike earlier this month.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/walmart-strike-dallas-arkansas-los-ange...

    • 7 months ago
  • gypsysailor
  • Varex_Sythe
  • hektic
  • Varex_Sythe
    • 0
      Varex_Sythe  
    • hektic:

      There is a strong possibility that it will not end well for these employees in the short to medium run; however, if union fever... sorry, I don't know what else to call it... strikes virtually all Wal-marts in the United States then there will be two possible outcomes.
      Either:
      (1)
      Wal-mart will unionize in the United States, which is odd that it hasn't considering Wal-mart is unionized in pretty much every other first world country where it exists...

      or (2)
      Wal-mart will shut down all of it's stores, opening up potential niches for old fashioned mom and pop stores that were driven out of business by Wal-mart stores opening up in their towns. Hopefully such a result would see a rise in successful small businesses and a subsequent rise in employment.

    • 7 months ago
  • Milieu
  • letsliveinpeace
  • youngdebater
  • Leen61
  • OlBlue
    • +2
      OlBlue  

    • Walmart is a preview to the future of what all of the middle class can expect their lives to be like if the right takes over. Long hours, low pay, and limited to zero benefits. Everything made off shore and huge profits to the 1% and their lackeys. The middle class won't have the pride and rewards of making anything, just the privilege of trying to scrape together enough to buy the crap their masters present to them.

    • 7 months ago
  • Incredulous
  • tverdell
  • remanns
  • artemis6
  • mrpuma2u
  • remanns
  • tverdell
  • TomCat1948
  • artemis6
  • MSII
  • TomCat1948
  • TomCat1948
  • letsliveinpeace
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