Support Walmart Black Friday Strikers!
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 17, 2012, 1:50 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags:
labor,
boycott,
donate,
walmart,
black friday
Support the Walmart Black Friday Strikers!
It's time to take a stand and support the workers who are standing up to live better through an unfair labor practice strike.
Walmart workers decided to strike on Black Friday after they were targeted for retaliation for speaking out about substandard work conditions and treatment last month in the first ever walk out in the history of the company.
We ask you to help us feed the workers who will walk out on the company next week on the biggest shopping day of the year.
https://www.wepay.com/donations/walmart-strikers-food-fund
The workers are demanding the following from Walmart:
Improve Workers’ Lives
Pay a minimum of $25,000/year and guarantee quality, affordable health coverage for all Walmart associates and workers in the company’s US distribution chain.Rebuild Communities
Sign on to a national community benefits agreement that ensures as Walmart expands into new markets, it strengthens communities, protects the environment and is responsible for the well-being of its employees in its retail stores and US supply and distribution chain.Put Its Promises in Writing
Agree to a global labor agreement guaranteeing the fundamental human right of freedom of association for all of its associates and instruct their suppliers to do the same, and recognize and negotiate with OUR Walmart.Elevate Global Living Standards
Establish a legally binding global responsible contractor policy requiring contractors and subcontractors to provide living wages, worker safety protections, and respect basic human and labor rights, including freedom of association and freedom from racial and gender discrimination.
How can I support in other ways?
You can join solidarity actions throughout the United States. Find out which solidarity actions are being organized and the store employees that are participating by going to the Corporate Action Network event page.
“The only thing workers have to bargain with is their skill or their labor. Denied the right to withhold it as a last resort, they become powerless. The strike is therefore not a breakdown of collective bargaining-it is the indispensable cornerstone of that process." -- Paul Clark
Click here and support the Walmart Black Friday strikers today!
This is awesome. Walmart represents American greed like no other. Six members of the Walton family own as much wealth as the bottom 30% of Americans. Nobody needs to earn that much profit without sharing it with the people who created the profit, the workers. Far too many Walmart workers qualify for food stamps which, we the people, pay for. No, Walmart, pay a decent wage! All workers, everywhere deserve a decent wage, a slice of the profits that they create, to enable them to live a decent life. Why is that too much to ask? We need to end this trend of the past 40 years of declining wages as a percent of profits. Profits cannot be allowed to skimmed off only for the wealthy. It's wrong!
Right on. It's about damn time this happened.
Therising! Nice. Welcome back. Hope you are well and that you stick around. The forum and the movement could use your strong and articulate writing again.
Cheers! Thanks. Great to be here. I always enjoy your writing. Seems like momentum is picking up again. This strike is a very big deal.
I have to laugh when I hear cynics occasionally ask "What the hell did Occupy achieve?" TO THOSE CYNICS, I say "Ha. First of all, Occupy isn't past tense. It's still very much with us. Just because the volcano isn't currently erupting doesn't mean there aren't millions of tons of glowing magma just beneath the surface of the earth. Right underneath you man... Shhhh... If you listen close, you can hear it bubbling and feel it rumbling.
Secondly, to those cycnics, I'd say: "Do you really think one of the largest corporations in the world would be shaking in its boots right now if millions of people around the world hadn't voiced solidarity with Occupy in the last 14 months? When people speak up, others feel safe speaking up. This is no small thing. In fact, it is the very thing the 1% are most afraid of: citizens around the world feeling their oats, feeling a sense of community with one another, feeling solidarity. This has the power to decimate the calculated divisions that have kept the 99% powerless for so long. Once we realize that we are the 99%, once we realize that what we have in common is far more powerful than that which divides us, we can make decisions from a position of unified power rather than demands from a position of divided weakness.
Yes, the Occupy movement has shifted the discussion in this country away from materialistic corporatism and toward economic fairness for all people. No small feat, and we're not going away any time soon.
Occupy and the people getting involved are striving for quality of life - for ALL.
That's it DKA. The key word is "all."
G-Day BW - For "ALL" and Quality ( not quantity ) and Healthy and Peaceful and absolutely For ALL. {:-])
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Right-On. And it is beginning to happen.
I think you're right!
I think this coming year will see more progress - as long as we continue as we have been - reaching out and educating.
I completely agree. It will progress in fits and starts like everything else but the magma is definitely bubbling underground, millions of tons of it. No stopping us now.
Time and long past time to address fundamental change for the better - the better for all.
New York City is still proudly Walmart-free. Fair play. Fair profit. Foul play. Fouled profit!
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Good say. Thanks.
food stamps for everyone
Basic income guarantee.
if everyone had money , the market would flourish
Bingo!
B - I - N - G - O
B - I - N - G - O
B - I - N - G - O
And bingo was his name-o.
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so tax where the money collects in pools and reroute to the people
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On the nose!
Good post
All the Politicians are about to cut Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid/ under the guise of the Fiscal Cliff which is a phony Construct of the 1%. This will gut these Social Safety programs for the poor/elderly. You young folks in this movement have parents grandparents and relatives that depend on these programs to live. Young folks need these programs also if you become disabled, need health care and are below the poverty level in income. This needs immediate attention as Obama and Boehner are doing everything to ram this through congress before Jan 1, 2013.
Dostoevsky's words below about the disease that grips the 1% and the effort of others to promote community is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it -- let's keep the great idea alive!
Think about the Walton family (who hold as much wealth as the poorest 40% of the U.S. combined) and think about the brave souls on the Walmart picket lines as you read this::
"Today, everyone asserts his own personality and strives to live a full life as an individual. But these efforts lead not to a full life but to suicide, because instead of realizing his personality, man only slips into total isolation. For in our age, man has been broken up into self-contained individuals, each of whom retreats into his lair, trying to stay away from the rest, hiding himself and his belongings from the rest of mankind, and finally isolating himself from people and people from him.
And while he accumulates material wealth in his isolation, he thinks with satisfaction how mighty and secure he has become, because he is mad and cannot see that the more goods he accumulates, the deeper he sinks into suicidal impotence. The reason for this is that he has become accustomed to relying only on himself; he has split off from the whole and become an isolated unit; he has trained his soul not to rely on human help, not to believe in man and mankind, and only to worry that the wealth and privileges he has accumulated may get lost.
Everywhere men today are turning scornfully away from the truth that the security of the individual cannot be achieved by his isolated efforts but only by mankind as a whole.
BUT AN END to this fearful isolation is bound to come and all men will understand how unnatural it was for them to have isolated themselves from one another. This will be the spirit of the new era and people will look in amazement at the past when they sat in darkness and refused to see the light. . . . . . Until that day, we must keep hope alive, and now and then a man must set an example, even if only an isolated one, by trying to lift his soul out of its isolation and offering it up in an act of brotherly communion, even if he is taken for one of God's fools.
This is necessary to keep the great idea alive."
I don't shop at Wal-Mart, personally.
i was there yesterday. I shop wherever its the cheapest cause im a cheapskate. Isnt everybody? I usually only shop at clearance sales, or if i see somethign I want I try to buy it online because someone usuallly has it for less. I love competitive markets!
Competitive markets? At what price? Is the suffering of Chinese workers really worth getting something cheap? Is the underemployment of many Wal Mart employees worth it? I try to buy local whenever I can. it may cost more out of my wallet, but it's worth it in the price of my conscience. Something that is priceless.
Obviously you have the right to shop wherever you want but if you shopped at other places, you would realize that WM is not always the cheapest. I want great bargains too but you also have to realize that they are material possessions-they are not important. This is the problem with this world; we want everything but we don't care how the product is made, as long as we can get it cheap and this needs to stop (at least the part of the workers suffering because we won't pay a decent amount)
Support for workers is critical for all our futures
http://www.nationofchange.org/momentum-builds-historic-black-friday-strike-walmart-1353247735
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/15/walmart-walkout-action-black-friday
it has begun
Please freedom fighters of america help save india from walmart. India will not forget you. http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINDEE8AF02R20121116 India.
The other 98% add their voice in calling out support:
Walmart is America's biggest employer and one of the most immoral in its labor practices. Workers have been trying to organize a real strike against them for decades. This Black Friday, it's actually happening - and it's time to stand in solidarity with those workers.
TELL THE WALMART STRIKERS YOU SUPPORT THEM: PLEDGE to BOYCOTT Walmart this BLACK FRIDAY - and get everyone you know to do the same.
Already boycott Walmart? Great - let it be known. Shop at Walmart all the time, but willing to take a day off to stand with the workers? Great - let it be known.
Let's let Walmart and the world know: We refuse to cross the picket lines. Pledge TODAY.
Once you pledge, we'll connect you to ways you can stand with the workers in person next week and throughout the strike. But the first step is telling the workers they're not alone out there, to let them know the public is behind them in the hard moments and days ahead. The first step is mutual aid.
Let's make sure the strikers know that the country is behind them. Join us.
Thanks for all you do to make this movement real.
Sincerely,
John Sellers, The Other 98%
Thanks for the post on supporting the black friday strikes.
What's the role of social media in strikes? Please participate in the OccupyMedia! survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WG7JRG2 https://www.facebook.com/OccupyMediaSurvey?ref=hl
what happen to the middle class ? walmart family owned retail if want to sell ur product in wamart u must make it in china union truck driver union wharehouse worker gone because of the evil smilely 1.4 million work at walmart how many jobs have been lost in america becase of walmart
I stand in solidarity with my sisters and brothers across the country. This action is long overdue. I just wish a strike had been called in Portland, OR as I would love to participate.
The contradictions between capitalism and democracy. And alternatives to capitalism. http://www.scribd.com/doc/113684529/Alt-Capitalism
i think we need to boycott every business that opens before 5 am on friday.
Action germinates reaction.
Yep.
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Tweeted : Send a message that you do not like today's business practices - boycott Black Friday. BTW - join a credit union - dmp the mega-monsters.
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I think we should cut to the front of the line, and at 7:59 wrap those doors with chains and pad locks, and then watch all hell break out as the sheep go fuckin nuts because they cant get their hands on a 32" TV for only $150.
Whats this country going to look like when there isnt money to buy stuff?
I am sure you understand that there is no "loyalty" towards America anymore. People just don't care and continue to buy cheap chinese made products and still complain about not having a decent job.
I can understand if a retired person has to maintain their standard of living by having to buy products at a lower price - but the rest of society - nah, they don't give a damm.
I buy used products whenever I can because the money being paid goes directly to the business - pawn shops and thrift stores are the best places for buying used things and you can get great deals.
Just bought a table mounted belt sander with a 6" disc for $10.00 - it was a little beat up and rusted but the motor worked. Took it home, spent some time cleanng it up and it runs like new.
That's my kind of purchase.
I got a great bench vice (on a bench) for twenty bucks. Took a couple of hours to recondition the vice and mount it to my new workbench, and I cut the legs of the old bench to make a rip-saw for cutting up firewood into tomato stakes.
Support striking workers!
What money? You must mean credit cards.
Good idea, except you'd probably be killed by the rabid mob. You're right, though. The sheep would go fucking nuts.
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I cannot believe that everyone thinks that the people working for Wal-Mart are being treated unfairly. I worked for Wal-Mart for 3 ½ years after I retired from the military. I moved up with the company faster than most. The only reason I left was for a higher position with AutoZone. The only people that seem to be complaining about the working conditions are the ones that want something for nothing. Look at Meijer here in Michigan, they are unionized and make less than Wal-Mart employees. Minimum wage is $7.25 an hour which if you were full time equals $15,080 a year and they want a minimum of $25,000 a year which is around $12.02 an hour. So everyone wants Wal-Mart to have to pay $4.77 more than the federal minimum wage just because they are making money? Total BS!!!!!
Anyone who pays their employees less than 10 an hr is a shithead.
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Are you 12?
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Wow!!! I am sitting here watching Ken Burns' "Dust Bowl" right now. Yup, they lost all their savings and their farms and many went west to be migrant farm workers. Anything to keep their families fed. Whatever happened to that attitude?
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They have to accept food stamps if they want to survive. Do you really think that they are going to go to their employers and say 'unless you pay me such and such I am not working'? Like WM will put up with that. A lot of jobs are like that-they only pay minimum wage. I have plenty of skills and I can't find anything. All these companies want 'experience'. Like you really need experience to stock shelves.
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It's coded language. It means that your level of experience, education and work history indicates that you will take a meaningful and paying job when the opportunity arises, that you are not uneducated and hard-up and that means you are not someone who can be reliably exploited. Deadbeat employers have created a invisible career field for exploitable labor and that career has the requirements of desperation and poverty.
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Go try a kiosk in store for a job there. I wanted my wife to get job there.
Go to other state to work. Whatever it takes. Getting started, be flexible. Take shitty jobs and work up to better.
That's life.
http://livingwage.mit.edu/
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