{"id":132525,"date":"2012-12-08T10:00:30","date_gmt":"2012-12-08T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=132525"},"modified":"2012-12-26T16:03:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T21:03:14","slug":"walmart-strikes-spread-faster-than-rollback-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/12\/08\/walmart-strikes-spread-faster-than-rollback-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart Strikes Spread Faster Than Rollback Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> Walmart strikes spread to more states<\/a> by Josh Eidelson in Salon.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> For the second time in five days \u2013 and also the second time in Walmart\u2019s five decades \u2013 workers at multiple U.S. Walmart stores are on strike. This morning, workers walked off the job at stores in Dallas, Texas; Miami, Florida; Seattle, Washington; Laurel, Maryland; and Northern, Central, and Southern California. No end date has been announced; some plan to remain on strike at least through tomorrow, when they\u2019ll join other Walmart workers for a demonstration outside the company\u2019s annual investor meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas. Today\u2019s is the latest in a wave of Walmart supply chain strikes without precedent in the United States: From shrimp workers in Louisiana, to warehouse workers in California and Illinois, to Walmart store employees in five states.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of associates, we have to use somewhat of a buddy system,\u201d Dallas worker Colby Harris said last night. \u201cWe loan each other money during non-paycheck weeks just to make it through to the next week when we get paid. Because we don\u2019t have enough money after paying bills to even eat lunch.\u201d Harris, who\u2019s 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 \u201cconstant retaliation\u201d for speaking up.<\/p>\n

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 and politicians. \u201cI\u2019m still thrilled about what happened,\u201d said Harris, who flew in for last week\u2019s walkout. \u201cAnd it\u2019s given me a lot more energy and a lot more drive.\u201d 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\u2019 flags.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Reached by email last night, Walmart spokesperson Dan Fogleman said the company \u201chas some of the best jobs in the retail industry \u2013 good pay, affordable benefits and the chance for advancement.\u201d Asked about last week\u2019s walkout, he said, \u201cThere 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.\u201d Fogleman said that Walmart \u201chad a few people go out to join the rally \u2013 very few when you consider the more than 12,000 people we employ in LA County \u2026 This event was not a factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Thursday\u2019s strike and today\u2019s were spearheaded by OUR Walmart, a year-old organization of Walmart workers backed by UFCW. The group is calling for improved staffing and benefits as well as an end to alleged retaliation against its members. Though closely tied to the UFCW, OUR Walmart isn\u2019t identifying itself as a union or calling for union recognition from the famously anti-labor company. UFCW; SEIU, the service employees union; and ACORN supported a different non-union Walmart workers association in 2005, so the concept isn\u2019t new. But the strikes are.<\/p>\n

Before these work stoppages, \u201cthe other stuff had been so predictable from Walmart\u2019s point of view,\u201d Columbia University political scientist Dorian Warren said yesterday. They\u2019ve always had activists coming to Bentonville. They\u2019ve never had a disruption in their supply chain.\u201d Warren, who\u2019s co-writing a book on Walmart, said the strikes by warehouse workers and store employees are a game-changer: \u201cThere was \u2018Before,\u2019 and there was \u2018After,\u2019 and we just crossed that line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like last week\u2019s, OUR Walmart is describing today\u2019s strike as a protest against retaliation. In July interviews with Salon, OUR Walmart activists alleged that Walmart illegally punished them for standing up. OUR Walmart has since filed dozens of Unfair Labor Practice charges against Walmart with the National Labor Relations Board. OUR Walmart alleges that the company has tried to suppress employees\u2019 activism through illegal tactics, such as threatening workers, and legal ones, such as holding mandatory meetings to bash OUR Walmart. In interviews with Salon, Walmart\u2019s Fogleman denied the threats and retaliation, but not the mandatory meetings.<\/p>\n

Those retaliation charges also affect the riskiness of the strike. Labor law generally recognizes non-union workers\u2019 right to strike without being punished for it. But it also recognizes employers\u2019 right to \u201cpermanently replace\u201d those striking workers, preventing them from coming back to work (if that seems not to make sense, that\u2019s because it doesn\u2019t). If the government agrees with OUR Walmart that the strikers are motivated by alleged crimes by management, then it would be illegal for Walmart to \u201cpermanently replace\u201d them.<\/p>\n

Asked yesterday whether any workers would be penalized for missing their shifts on Thursday, Fogleman emailed, \u201cThe law allows workers to do this, so long as it is done in a peaceful way.\u201d But OUR Walmart activists say that when it comes to Walmart, legal protections are little comfort. Harris gave the example of a co-worker who was fired, ostensibly for \u201cstealing time,\u201d immediately after a lunch break conversation with Harris about getting involved in OUR Walmart. He said management was standing nearby throughout the conversation.<\/p>\n

Professor Warren predicted that public relations concerns would be \u201cinfinitely more important\u201d than the law in dictating Walmart\u2019s response to strikes. Given that retaliation against strikers is more likely to draw attention, said Warren, \u201cthe gamble is, it could either send a signal that if anybody else tries this you\u2019re going to get fired. Or it could actually end up pissing off more workers who would then be willing to take collective action. So that\u2019s actually their dilemma right now, because their normal response is just retaliation, to fire workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dallas store workers are walking off the job just as three dozen Illinois distribution center workers return to work. Like the eight C.J.\u2019s Seafood workers who struck in June and the 30 California warehouse workers who struck in September, the Elwood, Ill., workers aren\u2019t legally employed by Walmart, but they\u2019re moving goods for the retail giant. \u201cWalmart owns the facility,\u201d freight handler Phillip Bailey said yesterday. \u201cThey decide exactly what goes on there \u2026 the whole thing is a squeeze that ends up squeezing the workers the most \u2026 the conditions all stem from Walmart.\u201d (As Salon has reported, some experts agree.) Bailey said he and other workers were fired for their role in presenting a petition addressing issues of safety and wage theft.<\/p>\n

A rally and civil disobedience action in support of the workers last Monday temporarily shut down the Elwood distribution center, Walmart\u2019s largest in the United States. The three-week Elwood strike against the Walmart subcontractor RoadLink was organized by the Warehouse Workers Organizing Committee, which is backed by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers union (UE). According to Leah Fried, a UE staffer working with the workers, RoadLink has agreed to rescind all of its allegedly retaliatory discipline \u2013 including the firing of Bailey and three others \u2013 and, in a rare move, to pay the strikers full wages for the time they were on strike.<\/p>\n

Bailey, said that victory holds a lesson for other workers in the Walmart supply chain: \u201cSometimes, if you stand up and stick together, you win.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next? OUR Walmart has promised a major announcement tomorrow regarding future actions. Meanwhile, there\u2019s more organizing afoot. Two weeks ago, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services issued visas to three workers who were leaders in the June CJ\u2019s Seafood strike, following approval from the Justice Department on the grounds that they were witnesses or victims to workplace crimes. According to National Guestworker Alliance Lead Organizer Jacob Horwitz, those workers plan to organize other guest workers in Walmart\u2019s supply chain to confront the company.<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s strike also took place as representatives of the global union federation UNI were in town to launch a new Walmart Global Union Alliance. \u201cIn Argentina, we have a union, so we\u2019re able to have that strength that doesn\u2019t exist here,\u201d Marta Miranda, a three-year Walmart greeter turned full-time union delegate, told Salon Friday in Spanish. Miranda, who was visiting as part of the UNI delegation, said that when she returns to Argentina, she\u2019ll tell her co-workers that \u201cthe sleeping giant is waking up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head of UNI Commerce Alke Boessiger said Friday to expect the new global alliance to coordinate \u201cjoint actions\u201d in the coming months. Boessiger emphasized that while many countries have laws that are more pro-union than the U.S., \u201cWalmart will do anything to avoid unions\u201d anywhere. She added that Walmart workers abroad understand that supporting U.S. workers is necessary for the sake of \u201cmaking sure that this model that the company has developed in the U.S. is not being exported.\u201d Could those joint actions include multi-country strikes? \u201cI wouldn\u2019t exclude it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to do whatever it takes in order to get this change to happen,\u201d Harris said hours before the start of today\u2019s strike. \u201cIf it costs me my job, then I\u2019m fine with that at this point. That\u2019s how bad it is \u2026 it\u2019s a small price to pay for global change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: Walmart strikes spread to more states by Josh Eidelson in Salon. The Text: For the second time in five days \u2013 and also the second time in Walmart\u2019s five decades \u2013 workers at multiple U.S. Walmart stores are on strike. This morning, workers walked off the job at stores in Dallas, Texas; Miami, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWalmart Strikes Spread Faster Than Rollback Prices<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first-ever walkouts by warehouse workers and store employees are a game-changer.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/12\/08\/walmart-strikes-spread-faster-than-rollback-prices\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Walmart Strikes Spread Faster Than Rollback Prices\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" 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