Northwest labor press., December 07, 2012, Page 2, Image 2

Walmart ‘Black Friday’ protests spread coast-to-coast
From Portland to Seattle, Miami to
Washington, D.C., Chicago to Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, Walmart workers
and their allies held job actions Nov. 23
— Black Friday — to protest against
the world’s largest retailer’s low wages,
lousy benefits, and retaliation against
workers who speak out.
How widespread were the protests?
Try even Seguin, Texas.
“We went to the Seguin Walmart
about 8:30 this morning. Myself, my
sister and my two nieces ages 13 and
16,” one woman wrote to changewal-
mart.org, one of the groups organizing
the protests. “We had our homemade
signs —‘WalMart Always Low
Wages.’ We read the prayer and sang
some songs and engaged in a few con-
versations with customers who were
curious. But then Walmart called the
police and made us leave.
“The officers refused to arrest us,
much to the manager’s dismay. There
was another manager — who looked
like security — who copied down each
of our sign messages. It was scary and
intimidating. There were only four of
us, all small women/girls. A local
newspaper reporter saw us and took
down all the information. I hope we
made a difference even though we were
there less than 40 minutes. I hope this
army of four makes a headline in our
small town!”
That “army of four” in a town of
22,000 east of San Antonio was dupli-
cated on a much larger scale in 1,000
protests nationwide that drew tens of
thousands of people.
Bangladeshi factory fire
echos late 19th century U.S.
A deadly fire in a Bangladesh gar-
ment factory that killed at least 112
workers has been linked to Walmart,
Disney, and Sears.
Photos from the scene of the fire at
the Tazreen Fashion garment factory
show Faded Glory-brand clothing —
an exclusive Walmart label it sells in
stores. An accounts book discovered
by an AP reporter on the scene also
showed that Disney and Sears were
among the U.S. companies who had
products produced at the plant. Wal-
mart and Sears have both alleged that
they knew of problems at the factory
and had believed that no products that
they carry were being produced there.
Josh Eidelson of The Nation spoke
with Scott Nova, executive director of
the Worker Rights Consortium, who
said Walmart is creating an industry in
Bangladesh where extremely low
wages and dangerous working condi-
tions are the norm.
“So Walmart is supporting, is incen-
tivizing, an industry strategy in
Bangladesh: extreme low wages, non-
existent regulation, brutal suppression of
any attempt by workers to act collec-
tively to improve wages and conditions,”
Nova told The Nation. “This factory is a
product of that strategy that Walmart in-
vites, supports, and perpetuates.”
Survivors of the Tazreen Fashion
garment factory fire said the fire extin-
guishers didn’t work and the exit door
was locked.
Newsday reported that “....When the
fire alarm went off, workers were told
to go back to their sewing machines.
Victims were trapped or jumped to
their deaths from the eight-story build-
ing, which had no emergency exits.”
In a statement released by U.S. Sec-
retary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, she said:
“Just over a century ago, in March
1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in
New York City burned to the ground,
killing 146 people, mainly young
women. That fire was our call to action.
It galvanized support for stronger
PAGE 2
worker protections and institutions to
enforce them, from workplace health
and safety to workers’ right to organize
and bargain collectively.
“The Tazreen Fashion factory fire is
a similar call to action for Bangladesh
and also for the many international
buyers supplied by the country’s gar-
ment factories. Investigations should be
conducted and the perpetrators pun-
ished, but things cannot then return to
business as usual. I know that change
is not easy,” Solis said.
There are no local unions at Tazreen
Fashion. In fact, Bangladeshi garment
workers struggling to gain safe work-
ing conditions and decent pay face
huge opposition. Earlier this year,
union activist Aminul Islam, a leader of
the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial
Workers Federation (BGIWF), was tor-
tured and murdered.
According to Clean Clothes Cam-
paign, a Netherland-based garment in-
dustry watchdog, more than 500 work-
ers have died in Bangladesh factory
fires over the last six years.
The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center
reported that Bangladesh is now the
world’s second-largest clothes exporter,
with overseas garment sales topping
$19 billion last year, or 80 percent of
total national exports. Yet the base pay
for a garment worker in Bangladesh is
the equivalent of $37 a month — the
same monthly amount it costs to buy
food for one person. The Solidarity
Center is a non-profit organization that
assists workers around the world who
are struggling to build democratic and
independent trade unions.
“The U.S. Department of Labor
stands ready to help, with technical as-
sistance and expertise, to work with the
government of Bangladesh to ensure
that this horrific tragedy becomes a wa-
tershed moment for Bangladeshi work-
ers’ rights,” Solis said.
(Editor’s Note: Jackie Tortora of the
AFL-CIO NOW blog contributed to
this report.)
Nearly 200 people rallied in pouring
rain outside the Walmart store at East-
port Plaza in Southeast Portland.
Among the protesters were Portland
City Commissioner Amanda Fritz and
Commissioner-elect Steve Novick.
Walmart has opened three new stand-
alone grocery stores in the Portland
metro area, with the possibility of 14
more in years to come.
Five hundred people protested in
Miami. An “OurWalmart” rally in
Paramount, Calif., attracted more than
1,000 people. OurWalmart is a group
of company workers organized last
year to work for change from the in-
side.
Other Walmart workers staged
walkouts in St. Paul, Minn., Milwau-
kee and Kenosha, Wis., Lancaster,
Texas, Albuquerque and Clovis, N.M.,
and Chicago.
Unions and union members, notably
the United Food and Commercial
Workers, supported the protests, but did
not organize them.
At every rally protesters demanded
justice, living wages, and decent bene-
fits for the retailer’s 1.4 million work-
ers. They also demanded respect, a
voice on the job, and no retaliation for
speaking out.
At the same time workers were
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
protesting on Black Friday, Walmart
executives took time out to announce
that the next Walmart dividend will go
out on Dec. 27 instead of Jan. 2. Why
the switch? According to veteran labor
journalist Sam Pizzigati, who edits the
online blog Too Much, the Bush tax cut
for dividends expires at year-end.
Switching the date will save the bil-
lionaire heirs of Walmart founder Sam
Walton as much as $180 million. That
amount is enough to give 72,000 Wal-
mart workers now making $8 an hour
(barely over the federal minimum wage
of $7.25) a 20 percent annual pay hike.
[That would still leave them under the
poverty line for a family of three.]
At the same time, the family of the
late founder Sam Walton have a net
worth of $102.7 billion — more wealth
than the bottom 40 percent of America.
Six members of the Walton family
appear on the Forbes 400 list of the
wealthiest Americans. Christy Walton,
widow of John Walton, leads the clan
at No. 6 with a net worth of $25.3 bil-
lion as of March 2012. She is also the
richest woman in the world for the sev-
enth year in a row, according to Forbes.
The other five are: No. 9: Jim Walton,
$23.7 billion; No. 10: Alice Walton,
$23.3 billion; No. 11: S. Robson Wal-
ton, oldest son of Sam Walton, $23.1
billion; No. 103: Ann Walton Kroenke,
$3.9 billion; and No. 139: Nancy Wal-
ton Laurie, $3.4 billion.
“I’m standing up for all Walmart
workers around the country so Walmart
will give us a living wage and so Wal-
mart will stop retaliating against us
when we speak up,” Charmaine
Givens-Thomas told In These Times
after she spoke at a rally at a Walmart in
the Chicago suburbs. That rally drew
around 250 people. “I want them (Wal-
mart) to understand we just want to be
able to pay our bills from one paycheck
to the next and for them to respect us,”
she said.
(Editor’s Note: Press Associates
Inc. contributed to this report.)
DECEMBER 7, 2012