Walmart Workers Threaten Black Friday Action

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   Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

   By ABBY ELLIN and ALAN FARNHAM
   October 10, 2012
   
   The latest news in the Walmart labor protests -- which have included walkouts and marches in Dallas, San Diego, Chicago and Los Angeles -- is the threat of a strike on Black Friday. That's the day after Thanksgiving, widely considered the busiest, and most lucrative, retail day of the year.
   http://abcnews.go.com/Business/walmart- … Hbaj67AlBk
   
   Well it's a case of workers rights vs the corporate investors wealth again? The low prices are paid by the workers. Is there a happy medium?

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      American Viewposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Well, I guess they could walk out. But they should keep in mind there are about 30 million unemployed people that would love to take their place. Not taking sides here, just pointing that out.

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      SallyTXposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I am proud of these folks! It's about time workers stood up to WalMart! I'm glad to see these workers understand the concept of human dignity. If we all accept the idea that people's time and effort isn't worth anything, we'll end up being a society of slaves. Maybe there are lots of unskilled, inexperienced people who would love to step in and take the place of experienced WalMart employees, but heir Black Friday and the holiday season will be sheer chaos if this happens. WM will soon learn the value of experience and the reason for compensating employees commensurate to their knowledge, skills and abilities.

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   wildernessposted 12 years ago

   Yes, black friday is the highest sales day of the year, and Walmart is probably in line there.
   
   This makes great sense; hurt a company as badly as possible just as the recession is showing weak signs of ending.  That will definitely promote job creation and high wages.
   
   Walmart is extremely successful in their niche; providing low cost merchandise with low profit margins and high sales volume to billions of people.  They don't do that by increasing their own costs, and labor is very definitely one of their highest costs.  Raise labor costs by more than marginal amounts, raise the cost of merchandise and Walmart suddenly can no longer compete effectively in their niche. 
   
   I've seen more than one company go under because of unrealistic demands by strong unions, and one small town nearly die as a result.  Will Walmart, with it's millions of employees be next?

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   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   I don't think Walmart has a historically strong union or one that is prone to making unreasonable demands.
   
   This is a company that has been empirically shown to discriminate against women in promotions, and to deliberately keep people on part time hours to avoid giving them benefits.
   
   IMHO, they need a bit of a push to treat their workers better.

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      SallyTXposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      WalMart is anti-union. They have a policy of firing people who try to organize. Yes, indeed, they do skew experienced workers' hours to prevent giving them raises and benefits that they have earned.

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   Uninvited Writerposted 12 years ago

   Don't blame them, who wants to have to risk their lives on Black Friday anyway just to serve the insane public?

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   kathleenkatposted 12 years ago

   Having worked in retail, I can personally attest to the dangers of the public on black Friday. You are lucky to get by without being insulted, let alone shoved, by consumers.
   
   However, they work at Wal Mart. Wal Mart doesn't have a union (at least not any Wal Mart I've been around), so staging a walk-out will just lose them their jobs.

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