By Laura Clawson
– Workers held two sit-ins at California Walmart stores on Thursday, with the second accompanied by a rally and leading to more than 20 arrests. Now the workers are looking ahead to Black Friday, which they say will feature the most striking Walmart workers to date.
Barbara Gertz, an employee from Denver, Colorado, said organizers are expecting to see protests in 1,600 stores. While they don’t yet have a headcount of how many workers will strike or in how many cities, she said they’ve gotten calls “every day” from employees who want to join in. Protests will hit Los Angeles and a number of other major metropolitan areas. Employees at more than 2,100 Walmart stores across the country have signed an online petition asking for higher wages and better working conditions.
Gertz explained why she’s planning to take part. “There have been many times my family can’t even afford the gas to get me back and forth to work, so my husband had to wait in the car to take me home after work,” she said on a call with the press. “Every time one of us speaks out for change, we take the risk that Walmart will fire us. That’s not right and that’s not legal. That’s why we’re going on strike.” The National Labor Relations Board has backed up some of the claims of retaliation against organizing workers.
Workers at Thursday’s sit-ins wore tape over their mouths to symbolize how they feel silenced and intimidated by Walmart, and carried signs urging Walmart to “stop the illegal threats.” The focus on Walmart’s intimidation of and retaliation against worker activists is both a way to invoke the legal protections of the National Labor Relations Act and a crucial organizing point: As long as Walmart gets away with intimidating workers and disciplining or firing activists, of course it will be incredibly difficult for the workers to organize. Even though retaliation against worker organizing is illegal, every Walmart worker who speaks up, let alone sits down or walks out, risks having their hours cut or losing their job. And given what Walmart pays, they don’t have a cushion. By the time the NLRB brings charges and holds hearings and Walmart has dragged the process out as long as possible, a fired worker could have been evicted, no matter how illegally they were fired.
That’s what makes the past two years of strikes by Walmart workers and fast food workers so remarkable—they are so vulnerable. Yet they are insisting on their rights nonetheless. Black Friday is the next big moment in that fight, and with 1,600 protests planned nationwide, there will be plenty of chances for allies to get out and support the workers.
Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/14/1344897/-Walmart-workers-plan-biggest-Black-Friday-strikes-and-protests-yet
