Walmart Workers Promise Strike on Black Friday

"America's biggest retailer may be in for an unexpectedly painful holiday season. Protesting low wages, spiking health care premiums, and alleged retaliation from management, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) workers have started to walk off the job this week. First, on Wednesday, about a dozen workers in Wal-Mart's distribution warehouses in Southern California walked out, followed the next day by 30 more from six stores in the Seattle area.

The workers, who are part of a union-backed employee coalition called Making Change at Wal-Mart, say this is the beginning of a wave of protests and strikes leading up to next week's Black Friday. A thousand store protests are planned in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., the group says."*

Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, and Ben Mankiewicz (Host, Turner Classic Movies) discuss the workers' push for living wages and affordable health coverage and whether Walmart should be worried.

*Read more from Elizabeth Dwoskin/ Business Week:

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[HumbledByGreatness]

If Wal-mart takes advantage of the government by paying their workers a minimum wage; then the government should set a living wage & then Wal-Mart will have to pay their workers more money on top of benefits.

[xanScorp]

That is how it works in my area. They only hire Part Time; that way you won't even qualify for benefits for 1 year. The employee discount wouldn't take effect for 90 days. Also, they tend to hire randomly, not based on aptitude.

[romanmir]

The reason Hostess lost money and Walmart didn't is better management and this includes managing not to allow union in your work place

As to 'trickle down', it trickles down, anybody who buys something from Walmart pays lowest price and that's what trickle down actually means: productivity is allowed to 'trickle down' and the end consumers get more PURCHASING POWER because of the wealth created by business

As to employees - they are a COST, they have the contracts and they are free to leave

[fdub]

2:20 you cant work more than 40 hours a week, if you do they cut your hours & tell you to go home early the next day & if you come up with more than 40 hours in a week multiple times then you could get fired.

[JoshuaGillund]

People with degrees hurt just as bad. You seriously think that they do not. I have a degree in Criminal Justice and it never helped me.

[KalEl]

People complain about Wal-Mart but, they still shop there.

[wolfwing]

I love people that say, "Just quit if you don't like it." as if thats a viable option, where I live, though in Canada so slightly different, Walmart is pretty much the biggest store, and you don't have alot of other options for work, and if more people looking for jobs then there are jobs, your not going to find another job, and walmart will find a new employee to replace you in a week. hell even if all employee's quit they have all replacements in a few weeks.

[Roluth]

So that's why Walmart is starting black Friday on Thursday

[davandstudios]

25K isnt a living wage. All kinds of people that are on welfare have 3 5 7 even 10 or more kids. 25 K might be a living wage for a young bachelor with a roommate or 2. Again. That is still not a "living wage" It seems like you dont know the cost of raising a family.

[ericsbuds]

cenk! fucking great point there at the end. funny how its not a free market win because if it werent for the govt, no company like that would ever exist.

[ZeDerpADerp]

do you own a car, house, tv? do you pay electricity bills? do you pay water and heating bills? you obviously have internet and i don't know how you could afford a computer in the first place. do you only eat 1 meal a day? do you only have 7 sets of clothes that you wear for the whole week then only wash at the end of the week?seriously how can you make 500 dollars last a whole month and still have enough money left to afford a computer? there is no way you can afford all that in New York.

[ThePatman]

That was amazing to listen to. cant believe Walmart treats their employees so bad.

[criskity]

Go, Wal-Mart strikers! Stand up for your rights!! I'm behind you!

[FreeFragSGS]

So you really don't believe that there are areas where all that's left are crappy minimum wage retail jobs? Between July 2008 and 2009 my county lost 80% of its jobs, none of which have come back since. Would you STILL believe that it's a matter of CHOICE to work a low-paying job if that's all that's available? NOBODY is hiring.

And Obama didn't cause the recession; blame Reaganomics.

[cayetanohawaii]

I'm thinking strongly about opening up a liquor store in the future. I'd love to have you come work for me once it's open. How about I don't pay you any money at all, since you're willing to settle for whatever. I'll just be sure to give you my extra thanks every now and then and have sandwiches brought in from Walmart....(sarcasm)... But only on the condition that you get on your hands and knees everyday and worship the ground I walk on, and you have to kiss my feet. Sound like a good deal?

[FreeFragSGS]

I don't use left-wing clichés. I use the truth. Nobody said they shouldn't work hard, everyone says they don't. And I don't expect someone "folding underwear" to make $100k, but if they're doing it for 40 hours a week, they should at least have a salary for a baseline living. The whole point of your belief system is that life is a not a right but a privilege, gained by having money in an economy built to shut out the little man with a big idea from making something of himself.

[FreeFragSGS]

Once upon a time I believed the same ideals you did. I believed America was the land of opportunity and with hard work and determination I could make an honest living. But it doesn't work. After the recession hit I lost my development job and had to endure minimum wage and homelessness for three years before my next good job. My father who works two full-time jobs and gets support from me, and he may still be losing his house. Tell me: in what society is this just?

[Trinivalts]

It's not that kind of status, u've mistaken the whole thing, it's basically money, except it isn't, the only thing that's different is that it can't be stockpiled, everything else would be almost the same. Incentive wouldn't be any different, u work to get stuff and egomanics r always more incentivized than introverts. I for one as a slight introvert would be more comfortable in that kind of system.

[Mablak]

The relative inequality does mean something in itself, it relates to how big a snowball effect we can expect to see in the near future; we're getting closer to a situation where most people are poor, and a few are wealthy. And I'm not sure what you mean by that; the best way to become wealthy for most people would involve getting a good education, something we can't do without more money taken from defense and put into schools.

[FreeFragSGS]

I've been laid off three times in spite of stellar performance. Just because I'm not a corporate apologist that doesn't make me uneducated. What it makes me is honest. You make excuses for people to knowingly wrong others as if they would never think to do it. The same people you are defending are the same kind of people who, a century ago, sent children to die in mines in factories, allowed poison to remain in mass-produced food and caused the greatest financial disaster in history.