November 24, 2012
by Craig Boehman
Wal-Mart,
Black Friday, Black Eye
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| Image courtesy of october2011.org |
“A dying people tolerates the
present, rejects the future, and find its satisfactions in past
greatness and half-remembered glory.” - John Steinbeck
What
does a bully do? He terrorizes those who are smaller and weaker. He
resorts to name-calling and pestering. He steals your lunch money. He
pushes you around then knocks you down in the mud. And sometimes he
beats you up when you're walking home after school. And apart from
the physical and verbal abuse, he demonstrates a more subtle set of
skills when confronted by his peers and authorities: he lies, he
cheats, and he steals. And more often than not, he gets away with it
scot-free.
What does a grown-up bully do? A grown-up bully may
take the form of a multi-national corporation third only in
number of employees behind the United States Department of Defense and
the People's Liberation Army of China. A grown-up bully doesn't pay a
livable wage – and forget about a 40 hour work week. A grown-up
bully pays you so little that you have an 80% chance of having to
rely on food stamps resulting in
$2.66 billion in government assistance every year. In all probability,
you and your fellow employees are likely the top Medicaid recipients
in your state. Meanwhile, this grown-up bully's CEO
may make more in an hour than you do all year. And the list of abuses
are certainly expansive and proportionate to the
$15 billion-plus in profits last year, a very grown-up allowance for
a grown-up bully, Wal-Mart.
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| Image courtesy of october2011.org |
Besides paying a deplorable wage
to employees against the backdrop of $418 billion in sales in 2011,
Wal-Mart has been accused of retaliating against its workers when
many attempted to organize to secure
better wages, healthcare and fairer schedules. But momentum has been
building to fight back against Wal-Mart's unfriendly (bullying) labor
practices with groups like OUR Walmart agitating for employees –
past and present – to organize and stand up for their rights not
only for their own sakes but for the sakes of their families and
communities whose lives are ultimately affected, too. They even provided a
strike tool kit for the upcoming Black Friday actions. Despite
Wal-Mart's assurances that their customers would see nothing unusual
when shopping on Black Friday, “there were protests at 1,000 stores
in 46 states, ranging from a couple of community supporters' asking
to talk with store managers about raising wages to raucous
demonstrations in Los Angeles, New York and Washington areas that
each attracted hundreds of people,” according to OUR Walmart in a
New York Times
piece
yesterday.
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| Image courtesy of october2011.org |
I shared several photos and videos on my Occupy
Wall Street Facebook
page
yesterday as they were made available by other Occupy groups and
individuals participating in the Black Friday actions against
Wal-Mart. One thing soon became apparent: Wal-Mart workers, their
families and communities, had grown tired of the corporate bully in
their midst. They were willing to risk further intimidation and
ostracization. They were willing to get called names by some of the
more audacious and
repugnant shoppers if they dared to impede the traditional Black Friday
consumerist orgy – knowing full-well that their actions wouldn't
put a single dent in Wal-Mart's bottom line. Those who had been true
to the cause of holding Wal-Mart accountable all these years were
finally rewarded with a populist uprising in the workforce, however
callow and diffident in the eyes of skeptics.
In the ensuing
melee on the Black Friday of 2012, the bully, Wal-Mart, got its first
black eye.
