The employees of Walmart understand as well, if not better, than anyone else that their employer is focused on profits, and nothing says “profits” in retail more than Black Friday.
Earlier this month, shortly after other actions, Making Change at Walmart issued this release:
On the heels of first-ever strikes by Walmart workers across the country, one hundred Associates traveled to Walmart’s corporate headquarters to call on Walmart to stop trying to silence and retaliate against workers for speaking out for job improvements. Joined by national leaders from civil rights, immigrant rights and women’s rights communities, religious institutions, unions and community leaders, the group announced that their organizations were committed to ‘reclaiming’ Black Friday for Walmart workers and their communities. At the same time, elected officials, community leaders and workers held protests at more than 200 Walmart stores across the country. …
Striking workers and national leaders committed to engaging in a wide range of non-violent activities on Black Friday, including rallies, flash mobs, direct action and other efforts to inform customers about the illegal actions that Walmart has been taking against its workers. …
There are indications that Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, is starting to listen, first to earlier strikes by warehouse workers, and now to retail employees. From Waging Nonviolence.
The company has faced a number of separate strikes in less than a month and, rather than its typical retaliatory response of firing workers, Walmart is backing down and conceding to some demands. …
A Walmart memo leaked to Huffington Post over the weekend confirms the seriousness with which the company is viewing the strikes, revealing how powerful organized labor can be when it taps into strong community support, utilizes social networks, and engages in direct action. …
The strikes demonstrated to others the efficacy of using direct action tactics in a campaign. Walmart’s retail workers, or associates, have long petitioned their employer for better working conditions, treatment and wages. Long, drawn-out legal challenges have embittered labor activists and employees, as the Walmart Litigation Project has extensively documented. But for the first time, workers on the retail end of Walmart’s corporate dominion went on strike themselves. …
… As the campaign for Walmart’s workers … looks toward Black Friday, the busiest day of the year for retailers, the pressure is now on Walmart executives to listen to its workers and end the abuse.
From the HuffPo report about the leaked memo:
The seven-page internal memo, issued Oct. 8, is intended for salaried employees only, and contains instructions on how to respond to strikes by hourly workers that spread to 28 Walmart stores in 12 cities earlier this week. …
The memo makes clear that Walmart … views the labor protests as a serious attack, a message that runs contrary to the company’s public comments that the strikes are mere ‘publicity stunts,’ as Walmart’s vice president of communications David Tovar told The Huffington Post Tuesday. …
Legal experts said the confidential memo shows an unprecedented level of caution from a company that has taken harsh stances towards employee attempts to organize in the past. …
Bold Progressive reports on the “sad state of workers at a Wal-Mart warehouse in Elwood, Illinois, the site of some of the first strikes.” Citing a Guardian report, one worker interviewed said that “some employees have resorted to sleeping in tents to get by, while others slept in abandoned homes.”
Actions on Black Friday are strong symbolically, but also practically powerful, if you want to get the attention of the world’s largest retailer. From Making Change at Walmart:
‘Walmart’s efforts to try to silence us is only building support among our co-workers in calling for changes at the store. We will not be silenced, especially on Black Friday when Walmart wants us to cut short the holiday with our families to help the company profit. If Walmart wants workers fully committed to the stores on Black Friday, Walmart needs to do more for us the rest of the days of the year,’ Colby Harris, who earns $8.90 an hour after three years working at a Walmart in Lancaster, TX.
Black Friday is November 23. That’s more than enough time for shoppers to have moved on from the 2012 election production. My guess: there will be shoppers / citizens who will honor the Walmart employee’s Black Friday actions (assuming the occur as now planned). But I’ll bet there will still be the over-night campers and long lines. One reason that many will continue shopping at Walmart: the giant retailer has put so many small retailers out of business that shopping options are limited, especially in rural and small town areas. Maybe, though, even some of those shoppers will choose to avoid the usual Black Friday Walmart madhouse. Or maybe they’ll go, but join the strikers rather than shoppers.
(Making Change at Walmart Logo via Making Change at Walmart)
I’d stay away from Walmart in solidarity, but I almost never shop there anyway. I could dispense with the “almost”, in fact, if it weren’t for people I know who insist on going there.
If current trends continue, in 2015 “Black Friday” will begin the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving….
Last year, several right-wing radio choads blasted “whiny, ungrateful” employees for complaining about having to leave their families Thanksgiving day afternoon to take up shifts at these ugly, employee-abusing box stores. Even more sickening was the agreement from the callers who phoned in to tell people angry at having to head out before dessert to be a wage slave so idiots could buy stuff they don’t need at deep discount prices. I’m sure this is only going to get worse.
I hope the employees of many Wal Marts find solidarity and refuse to work. At no time of the year will they have more leverage.
I would personally love to see a No Shopping Christmas- a “sit down strike” among shoppers- which would do more damage to the economies of China and Pakistan and Taiwan than ours. No insane, frantic buying would also lead to a more relaxing holiday and a good lesson in family and societal values as well. Let’s give the finger to Wal Mart, Best Buy and VISA by refusing to jump through the hoop when they set it up for us this year.