Listen to the entire program<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n![\"null\"](\"\/home\/graphics\/walmart_walkout.jpg\")
Recent protests at Walmart stores have shed new light on the mistreatment of Walmart workers in more than 5000 stores across America. Walmart, the nation\u2019s largest employer has more than 2 million workers on payroll, comprising a massive 2% of the US GDP. <\/p>\n
On October 4th, more than sixty Walmart workers organized a walkout from nine different stores across California. Since then, Walmart workers across the nation have followed with their own protests. On October 10th, workers staged walkouts in states such as Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky. On the same day, about a hundred current and former workers met outside an annual Walmart investor meeting Bentonville, Arkansas. The protests are organized primarily by the group Organization United for Respect or OURWalmart.<\/p>\n
The demonstrators are demanding better wages, stable and improved working conditions and less retaliation from management when speaking out. Colby Harris, a Walmart worker from Texas has not seen his wage increase from $8.90 an hour over the last three years. Many people claim that not only are wages stagnant, but that Walmart engages in wage theft and that overtime pay is not always honored. <\/p>\n
Activists are scheduling an ultimatum for their grievances. Unless several of their listed demands are met, organizers are planning to walk out on Black Friday, America\u2019s busiest shopping day of the year. <\/p>\n
In light of the recent demonstrations, a memo was handed down by the management to salaried Walmart workers, giving advice as to how to deal with unions and organized demonstrations. The memo states: \u201cAs you know, activists or union organizers have been trying for years to stop our Company\u2019s growth and to damage our relationship with our customers and members.\u201d <\/p>\n
While the hundred protestors who have recently walked out seems tiny in relation to the 2 million strong Walmart workforce, actions like these have worked in the past; in 2006, worker wages increased in 700 stores due to social and political protests against the company. <\/p>\n
Walmart has had a long history of abusing workers rights. Workers claim that the company bullies them by reminding them that they can be fired and replaced at a whim. Hours are not regular and change sporadically, forcing workers to adapt to an unpredictable schedule. Other workers do not even get enough hours to work.<\/p>\n
GUESTS: Nelson Lichtenstein, author of The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business and the MacArthur Foundation chair in history at the University of California, Santa Barbara and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, <\/em><\/p>\nClick here<\/a> to read Nelson Lichtenstein’s article about the Walmart Walkout. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recent protests at Walmart stores have shed new light on the mistreatment of Walmart workers in more than 5000 stores across America. Walmart, the nation\u2019s largest employer has more than 2 million workers on payroll, comprising a massive 2% of the US GDP. On October 4th, more than sixty Walmart workers organized a walkout from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31854,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31836\/revisions\/31854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}