WWW.UFCW.ORGNovember 27, 2012 Volume 16, Issue 12

The Black Friday Walmart Will Never Forget

Walmart workers made history last week by striking in more than 100 cities on Black Friday and the days leading up to the shopping frenzy. Worker actions were supported by nearly 1,200 protests in 48 states including strikes, rallies, fl ash mobs, direct action, and other efforts to inform customers about Walmart’s illegal actions to silence, discrimi-nate against, and retaliate against its workers.

Executive Vice President and Director of Organizing Pat O’Neill said, “This black Friday, brave OUR Walmart members, together with the UFCW and a host of new and engaged allies were able to change the national dialogue about retail work. Analysts, media, and pundits were openly challenging Walmart’s business model. For the fi rst time, opinion leaders were speaking about the need to raise the wages of workers in this growing and vital sector of the American economy.”

“Walmart has spent the last 50 years pushing its way on workers and communities,” said Mary Pat Tifft, an OUR Walmart member and 24-year associate who led a protest on Thursday evening in Keno-sha, Wis. “In just one year, leaders of OUR Walmart and Warehouse Workers United have begun to prove that change is coming to the world’s largest employer.”

“I’m so happy that this is history, that my grandkids can learn from this to stand up for themselves,” Miami striker Elaine Rozier told The Nation Thursday night. Before, “I always used to sit back and not say anything. . . I’m proud of myself tonight.”

OUR Walmart members took action under the threat of “serious consequences” – articulated by Walmart Vice President David Tovar on national news outlets. Key OUR Walmart leaders were systemati-cally removed from the Black Friday schedule to prevent them from formally striking. All of them participated in actions that day, regard-less of their strike status. Walmart also fi led an NLRB charge against the UFCW and sought an injunction against the actions claiming the worker activity made unfair claims for UFCW representation.

The Board has yet to issue a ruling on Walmart’s charge or on the dozens of unfair labor practice charges OUR Walmart fi led on behalf of Walmart associates who were retaliated against by managers. Ironically, Walmart’s NLRB charge against the UFCW inspired nearly every retail reporter in the country to write or broadcast a story about the impending job action in the days leading up to Black Friday.

Across the country, UFCW local unions stood in solidarity with Walmart workers. Felicia Miller, a UFCW member and deli clerk at Safeway, told The Nation that Walmart is driving down standards for new workers at her unionized store. “The young people coming in, pay stinks now because of Walmart.” said Miller. “Because our com-panies are saying, if Walmart can get away with it, why can’t we?” She said the sight of Walmart workers on strike was “awesome. I’m here to support them all the way.”

Workers from Atlanta, GA, St. Paul, MN, Ocean City, MD, UT, AZ, WY, and AK are just some of the many who stood together in solidarity to make these strikes a success. The movement exceeded expectations in places like North Carolina where 125 workers par-ticipated in actions when orgainizers expected only 30. A complete list of UFCW local unions, community partners, faith leaders and allies who made the Walmart strike successful will be printed in We are Making Change later this week.

Hundreds of images and videos of actions can be found here: http://changewalmart.tumblr.com/ and http://bit.ly/Tovk6r.

Many actions were organized through the Corporate Action Net-work (CAN) tool and led by community members, religious lead-ers, Occupy activists, AFL-CIO, CTW unions, and social justice activists. Using the resources posted on CAN, Walmart associates launched their own job actions in locations previously untapped by OUR Walmart organizers. The CAN site recorded more than 25,000 downloads of materials for actions and over 40,000 online petition signatures.

In what was truly the fi rst open-sourced (online-organized) job ac-tion in UFCW history, the campaign put every piece of technology to use to amplify efforts – from online petitions, to live streaming major strike actions, and broadcasting Walmart workers’ stories and voices. The workers’ video, “Why are we standing up to live better?” has been viewed by more than 160,000 people in the past month.

“Our voices are being heard,” said Colby Harris, OUR Walmart member and three-year associate who walked off the job in Lancast-er, Texas, Thursday evening. “And thousands of people in our cities and towns and all across the country are joining our calls for change at Walmart. We are overwhelmed by the support and proud of what we’ve achieved so quickly and about where we are headed.”

“We already consider this a victory,” said Harris. “People out there are hearing us, and Walmart knows we’re not going to stop.” OP

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