Black Friday protest plans are making Walmart nervous - soc.retirement

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Message from discussion Black Friday protest plans are making Walmart nervous
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Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2012 05:07:27 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: Black Friday protest plans are making Walmart nervous
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Black Friday protest plans are making Walmart nervous

((((VIDEO AT SITE))))

http://tinyurl.com/b4jd7e9


For weeks, protests and brief strikes by Walmart workers across the
country yielded dismissive statements from Walmart about how small the
number of protesters and strikers was in the context of the company's
1.4 million U.S. workers. But Friday, a week before a planned wave of
Black Friday protests, it became clear that this isn't something
Walmart is dismissing. The company filed an unfair labor practice
charge against the United Food and Commercial Workers, the union with
which non-union Walmart worker groups are affiliated. That's not a
tactic Walmart would bother with if it was confident it could crush
these workers' spirits as it's accustomed to doing.

Activities over the past year or longer "have caused disruptions to
Walmart's business, resulted in misinformation being shared publicly
about our company, and created an uncomfortable environment and undue
stress on Walmart's customers, including families with children,"
Walmart outside counsel Steven Wheeless said in a letter sent on
Friday to Deborah Gaydos, assistant general counsel of the UFCW.
You know what creates an uncomfortable environment and undue stress on
people, including families with children? Walmart's ridiculously low
pay scale and scanty opportunities for advancement, such that,
according to internal company documents:

Low-level workers typically start near minimum wage, and have the
potential to earn raises of 20 to 40 cents an hour through incremental
promotions. Flawless performance merits a 60 cent raise per year under
the policy, regardless of how much time an employee has worked for the
company. As a result, a "solid performer" who starts at Walmart as a
cart pusher making $8 an hour and receives one promotion, about the
average rate, can expect to make $10.60 after working at the company
for 6 years.
That, combined with policies intentionally keeping workers at part-
time hours so they don't qualify for benefits, is why so many Walmart
employees are forced to rely on food stamps and other public
assistance to make ends meet. Being kept poor is the sort of thing
that causes families with children just a little more distress than
being exposed to workers picketing outside of stores.
Walmart's dismissive statements about the small percentage of workers
taking part in the protests are accurate in a literal sense, but the
decision to try to use the law to shut the protests down reveals that
something bigger than the percentages is going on: this is the first
time Walmart has faced such sustained, defiant activism against its
abuses of workers. Usually when workers have tried to fight the
conditions they face, retaliation and intimidation from managers have
been enough to shut it down. That's not working this time, and as the
protests spread and draw public notice, it seems that executives are
nervous enough to go beyond their usual tactics. And when they're
nervous, it's time to double down.

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