>Walmart Workers for Change, a new campaign of thousands of Walmart’s 1.3 million associates across the country who are standing up and demanding a voice in the workplace, released a new video today that show the kind of anti-worker tactics they are facing from the world’s largest retailer. “The associates are afraid,” said Cynthia Murray, a Walmart associate in Laurel, Maryland:
They’re intimidated, and they are afraid. My family and other families have paid the price for freedom. And when you tell me I can’t talk about a union, you’re taking my freedom from me.
Workers in more than 100 stores in 15 states across the country have joined together and signed union representation cards, citing a lack of respect from the company, as well as poverty-level wages and sub-par benefits as reasons they need a union voice on the job. Even though Walmart’s got a long and well-documented history of anti-worker activities, workers say they Obama’s election has inspired them to take action, as has the introduction of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress. The campaign comes at a time when workers find their wages have stagnated, even as Walmart and the Walton family continue to make record profits. Walmart’s recently released 2009 10K shows the company made $13.4 billion in profits last year. In the new video, which can be viewed at http://www.walmartworkersforchange.org/index.php/pages/articles/walmarts_war_on_workers, 10 workers from coast to coast detail the company’s response to their organizing efforts, including:
Dominique Sloane and Mark Moore, of Dallas, Texas, were told that their store would be closed if workers voted to organize. In Miami, Florida, Cheryl Guzman was interrogated by a manager about who among her colleagues supported a union. Linda Haluska, of Glendale, Illinois, was called into four mandatory meetings in one week, where she and her colleagues were shown anti-union, anti-Employee Free Choice videos.
Walmart Workers for Change is a new campaign made up of thousands of Walmart workers joining together to form a union and negotiate better benefits, higher wages, and more opportunity for a better future.
