Look Out for Pork in the Trees

If you thought Walmart workers would gain raises and right through collective action on the same day pigs fly, better watch out for falling swine shit.

 

Liza Featherstone at The Nation:

More than a year ago, Walmart spokesman Steven Restivo lyrically told me that the company had changed its relationship with communities, from a “transactional to transformational” one. That had a nice ring to it. Indeed, Walmart had grown more sophisticated about philanthropy and sustainability, voluntarily improving in these areas. But Restivo was not referring to the retailer’s management philosophy. It’s long been clear that the company’s relationship with its workers would never be “transformed” without dramatic action from the workers themselves. Thanks to some brave employees, and a union open to experimentation and real organizing, that action has at last begun.

In October, for the first time in Walmart’s five-decade history, workers walked out of stores in Dallas, Miami, Washington, greater Los Angeles and elsewhere, supported by some 200 people who showed up at the company’s Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters for its annual investors’ meeting. The group mic-checked human resources vice president David Scott, who weakly invited them to meet individually with his department. “We are not here individually. WE ARE NOT HERE INDIVIDUALLY,” the workers politely shouted. “We are here as a group. WE ARE HERE AS A GROUP.” At the heart of the actions is the workers’ demand for freedom of association.

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It appears unlikely that Walmart can quell this level of unrest easily. Workers in Walmart-controlled warehouses in Illinois and Southern California were on strike for several weeks this fall. The OUR Walmart strikers are back in their stores, but they have told the company that if their demands are not met, Black Friday—the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year—will be a rowdy one, with strikes and actions at stores all over the country.

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To be sure, as Walmart never tires of pointing out, the strikers are a small fraction of the its 1.4 million US employees. But if Walmart employees win changes in their workplace this way, workers everywhere may realize that it can be done. Says UFCW spokesman Evan Yeats, “If we change Walmart, we change things not just for our members but for the working class in America.” Now that would be “transformational.”