As planned Black Friday strikes draw increasing media attention, Walmart continues to publicly dismiss the actions as stunts and the workers involved as an unrepresentative fringe. But workers charge that behind closed doors, the company is waging a stepped-up campaign to to intimidate them out of striking. That includes both alleged illegal threats and punishments, and likely legal mandatory meetings designed to discourage workers from joining the Black Friday rebellion.
As Black Friday approached, the honchos at Walmart, the largest employer in the United States, found themselves at a loss to respond to a nationwide rebellion within the ranks of their near-captive workers -- people who work for an average wage of $8.81 per hour, according to The National Memo, often in areas where Walmart is the only game in town for a job if you don’t have a college degree (or even if you do).
Forget the stampeding shoppers, the half-priced waffle irons, or the pepper spray wielding wackos: barring a federal intervention, the main event this Black Friday could turn out to be a showdown between organized labor and its arch corporate nemesis, Wal-Mart.
Chances are you missed this particular bargain on Black Friday: Agree to spend 15 cents more on every shopping trip, and Walmart, Target, and other large retailers will agree to pay their workers at least $25,000 a year.
This strike follows a cluster of other Walmart strikes across the country over things like unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, excessive hours, and low pay. Learn more after the jump.
As Americans across the country head out en masse to malls and shopping centers to kickoff the holiday spending season today, it's important to remember that too many of the retail workers bringing us those deals earn meager wages.
The ranks of America's retail workforce have surged to more than 4.5 million workers, making it one of the nation's largest job categories. Their numbers swell further during the holiday crush, as stores take on additional seasonal employees. The U.S. is expected to add another 740,000 of retail jobs by 2020.
On a talk show this past Sunday, Walmart worker Greg Fletcher spoke about the realities of struggling to provide for his family on the company's infamous low wages. David Frum, a conservative columnist atNewsweek, pointedly asked Greg whether he got the Earned Income Tax Credit, a tax refund meant to supplement the earnings of low-wage workers.
With Thanksgiving come and gone, we are now officially in the thick of the holiday shopping season, which means a good chunk of the country will be driving down to Walmart, Target, and other giant discounters to pick up gifts for friends and family. When they do, they'll be rewarding some of the largest companies in America for paying many of their front line workers poverty wages.
This Black Friday the lives of low-wage retail workers were thrust into the spot light as employees of a variety of stores weent to work on Thanksgiving Day and strikersdescended on Walmart stores in 100 cities.
Thousands of Walmart workers around the country are planning to strike on Black Friday, hoping to end retaliation they claim the massive retail chain’s workers receive when they speak out for better working conditions.
It is really terrific to see retailers here giving critical attention to the Demos study. As a former business owner in the health services industry, I do realize that these problems are more than just abstract theory. That's one of the reasons why Demos and I thought it would be useful to evaluate the possibilities for adopting this business model across the retail sector, especially as the importance of retail to the US economy continues to grow.
It's widely known that the U.S. is way out of step with the rest of the world in not having paid maternity leave. We are now one of only three nations—rich and poor - that don't guarantee job-protected time off with some amount of income after the birth of a child.
Four-year-old John Kaykay is a serious and quiet boy—“my thoughtful one,” his dad calls him. When the official greeters at the front door of the McClure early-childhood center in Tulsa welcome him with their clipboards and electric cheer—“Good morning, John! How are you today?”—he just slowly nods his small chin in their direction. When he gets to Christie Housley’s large, sunny classroom, he focuses intensely on signing in, writing the four letters of his name with a crayon as his dad crouches behind him.
Before the Great Recession, the financial sector had consistently been eating up a greater and greater share of the economy. In 2007, it accounted for a whopping 40 percent of corporate profits. Before 1950, the financial sector made up less than 3 percent of GDP; now it makes up more than 8 percent.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Massachusetts Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren is likely to focus her efforts on the Senate Banking Committee in areas that go far beyond her bread-and-butter expertise in consumer protection, analysts say.
The last presidential debate not only continued the silence on climate change, it also advanced the false narrative that we have to choose between economic growth and action on climate change. While the candidates focused on how to keep gas prices down, increase energy independence, and create jobs, they never addressed how we can use our energy plan to fight climate change. By refusing to address climate consequences, both candidates reinforce the idea that we either focus on economic growth or we focus on the environment, but not both.
In politics, there inevitably comes the dreaded time when politics and politicking run into reality. It is the point at which you can no longer appease two opposing parties and a decision must be made that chooses one party's interests over the other. I imagine politicians hate this moment because it shows their true character, for better or worse.
No doubt the new International Energy Agency (IEA)'s latest World Energy Outlook will be cause for celebration for the fossil fuel industry. In it, IEA points to the strong oil and gas production in the U.S. and predicts that by within a decade or so, the U.S. will become the world's largest oil producer, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia. By 2030, North America could be a net oil exporter and, around the same time, the U.S. will likely be energy independent.