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Kevin,
Last month, something amazing happened at Walmart. Across the country, workers went on strike for the first time in Walmart’s 50-year history. They were sick of poverty wages, sick of irregular hours, sick of retaliation for speaking up. These courageous workers inspired the world, but Walmart hasn’t budged — so now workers are threatening to organize even bigger strikes on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year.
We can’t overstate how big of a deal this is. The workers are taking an enormous risk by going on strike. They have no union, so they will have to go without pay. Some might be fired, illegally. Workers who work Walmart’s definition of “full-time” often make just $15,500 a year and can barely make ends meet, so missing just a few days of work could mean that their kids go hungry.
But if this fledgling worker movement can continue to grow across the country, it could be our biggest chance to end Walmart’s abusive working conditions — which would change the lives of millions of workers around the world.
The strikes that have already occurred at Walmart have inspired the SumOfUs community. Over a hundred thousand of us have taken action, by signing our petitions, sharing our solidarity statements, and more — and almost of us 1000 donated to buy ads about the strikes in Walmart executives’ hometown newspaper.
Now the workers have asked us if the SumOfUs community can take it one step further and help make this strike as big as possible, by donating to purchase gift cards for the workers who walk off the job. These cards will make up for lost pay, so that the workers don’t have to choose between standing up for their rights and feeding their children. And the more gift cards we help them buy, the more workers will be able to join in the strike, and the bigger and more powerful this movement will be.
We figured you might want to have an idea of who these workers are before donating, so meet Carlton Smith.
Carlton isn’t anyone’s idea of a troublemaker or a rabble rouser. The grandfather of four has worked at a Paramount, California Walmart for 16 years. But over the years, Carlton grew frustrated with the way Walmart treated his coworkers, who have been like a second family to him. As profits and executive pay climbed higher and higher, Carlton’s friends’ wages shrank and their hours were cut until they could barely make ends meet.
Carlton wanted to stand up for his co-workers, so he joined the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (or OUR Walmart, for short), a group of workers that advocates for better treatment. Carlton talked to his fellow employees and did outreach to the community; he flew to Bentonville to talk to CEO Mike Dukeand Walton heir Rob Walton about the need for change at Walmart; he even introduced a shareholder resolution protesting overpayment of executives.
Conditions at Walmart remain appalling — but Carlton isn’t giving up. Not even close. Last month he joined hundreds of other workers at Walmart’s corporate headquarters to demand an end to retaliation against workers who speak out. And if things don’t change over the next two weeks, Carlton’s joining the strike on Black Friday.
Over the last 50 years, Walmart has waged an all-out war on workers — driving down wages, crushing attempts to organize, and sourcing from sweatshops all over the world. Today, Walmart is the world’s largest private sector employer (only the Chinese and American militaries employ more people), with over two million employees around the world.1 The average Walmart Associate makes just $8.81 an hour — which means that hundreds of thousands of them live below the poverty line.2 And together, the Walton heirs have greater net worth than the bottom 100 million Americans combined.3
When Walmart workers went on strike last month, they inspired millions of people like us in the SumOfUs community. We know the workers already have Walmart scared — store managers across the country have received emergency instructions about how to deal with the strikes. If workers walk off the job on America’s biggest shopping day, it’ll be one of the biggest disruptions that Walmart’s business model has ever faced. And it could be the beginning of something game-changing.
Click here to support these courageous workers by donating to the Walmart workers’ strike fund.
Thanks for all that you do,
Rob, Taren, and the rest of us at SumOfUs
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Further Reading:
“Happy 50th Birthday, Walmart?” SumOfUs.org
Making Change at Walmart factsheets
[1] Mother Jones: To Match Walton Heirs’ Fortune, You’d Need to Work at Walmart for 7 Million YearsSeptember 20, 2012
[2] BBC: Which is the world’s biggest employer? March 19, 2012
[3] Forbes: Six Waltons have more wealth than the bottom 30% of Americans December 14, 2011
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