Posts Tagged ‘Wal-Mart’

Standing on the Side of Love with Walmart Workers

1 Comment | Share On Facebook| Standing on the Side of Love with Walmart Workers Share/Save/Bookmark Oct 31, 2012

This post was written by Charlotte Droogan, Lay Community Minister and member of the UU Society for Community Ministries Lay Working Group and the Universalist Unitarian Church of Joliet, IL.

I am on the board of the Warehouse Workers for Justice Interfaith Action Commitee. My church is also deeply involved in supporting Walmart workers under the banner of Standing on the Side of Love. We plan to show Walmart workers some love by participating in a witness on ‘Black Friday’, the day after Thanksgiving, following our huge action earlier this month.

Standing on the side of love at the Elwood rally.

On October 1, we participated in a rally and act of civil disobedience to support the striking workers at the Walmart warehouse in Elwood, Illinois. We carried our banner and wore our now famous t-shirts. It was estimated that nearly 1,000 people were in attendance.

Along with more than a dozen others, I was arrested, wearing my clerical collar, for civil disobedience. Even though this was a planned peaceful protest, a Mobile Field Force Team in riot gear marched down the Walmart entrance towards us.

The police officer was a friend-of-a-friend and I joked with him that I felt like I was in a wedding, marching down the road with him. He chuckled and we just kept walking to the paddy-wagon (old Chicago term) without missing a beat. I felt like we were on a movie set. We were all charged with trespassing and given a $120 ticket in the parking lot of the Elwood Police Department.

The most exciting part of the whole demonstration was knowing that Walmart shut down the entire warehouse for the day. This intermodal facility in Will County is the third largest in the world after those in Hong Kong and Singapore. For our little band of warriors to shut them down for twenty-four hours and almost immediately have Walmart rehire and pay the workers their back wages was pretty close to a miracle.

Charlotte getting arrested.

As Jeannie Owen, another member of Committee on Lay Ministry, reported in our church newsletter:

“We marched for miles (or so it seems) for the Walmart warehouse workers today. The workers are paid $10 an hour for lifting backbreaking boxes in temperatures that can range from 0 to 120 degrees, there are no benefits, they never know how many hours they will work, and often get ripped off for overtime if paid at all. … The largest, richest company in the world that earns billions and gives millions to the Walton inheritors cannot be bothered with the wellbeing of its own workers.

“A number of people who recognized the Standing on the Side of Love banner as UU came over and spoke to us. Many unions and activist causes participated. It was estimated there were between 600 and 1,000 people there marching, walking, standing up for justice. Beware of little old lady activists…”

We plan to continue our campaign in Joliet with ‘un’-shopping days and a Black Friday witness in November. Learn more at our website. Wherever you are, please join us by participating in Black Friday Actions–you can deliver a letter to manager, hold a prayer vigil, organize or join a flash mob. Check here for registered events close to you or register your own event for a Walmart in your area!

 

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Show Walmart Workers Some Love

3 Comments | Share On Facebook| Show Walmart Workers Some Love Share/Save/Bookmark Oct 18, 2012

The poet Langston Hughes writes, “I dream a world where all will know sweet freedom’s way, where greed no longer saps the soul, nor avarice blights our day.” Across the country, Walmart store and warehouse workers are risking all they have to make that dream a reality. Just this month, Walmart workers walked off the job in 12 different states to protest Walmart’s poor wages and working conditions.

Now, Standing on the Side of Love and Interfaith Worker Justice are coming together to support Walmart workers on Black Friday, November 23, 2012. Click here to find an action near you.

I have had the honor to meet some of these brave workers. Sebastian* gathers carts in the parking lot of a California Walmart store. He loves his job and his co-workers, but he doesn’t love the pay or treatment by managers. He can’t get enough hours to be eligible for health care benefits, so he has none. He makes just a bit above minimum wage and keeps hoping for a raise, but hasn’t gotten one in two years. The managers ignore him and treat him like he is disposable. Sebastian is smart and committed to the company. He deserves a voice. He deserves respect.

The average Walmart Associate makes just $8.81 per hour and many, like Sebastian, have no benefits because they aren’t allowed to work the minimum number of hours to receive health care coverage. As one of the largest employers of immigrants and people of color in the United States, Walmart’s policies have a direct impact on some of the most marginalized members of our communities.

Walmart can afford to do better. Last year, the company made $10 billion in profits. In 2010, the net worth of six members of the Walton family exceeded the combined wealth of the bottom 42% of American families. Walmart claims it is doing its share to help poor people by keeping prices low. Phewy! Walmart could still have low prices and pay its workers living wages and benefits.

This year on Black Friday—Walmart’s number one profit day, we’re going to show Walmart workers some love. Please join me and other worker advocates and people of faith in showing support for Walmart workers. Some of us will be doing prayer vigils and delivering letters to managers. Others will be holding flash mobs inside the store. Together, we will raise our voices with those of workers across the country to call for increased wages, better working conditions, and more respect for Walmart workers.

Please join me in standing on the side of love with Walmart workers. Click here to find an action at a Walmart store near you.

In justice,

kim

Kim Bobo
Executive Director
Interfaith Worker Justice
kimbobo@iwj.org

*name changed for his protection

The message above went out on Thursday, October 18, 2012 to Standing on the Side of Love supporters. You can sign-up for these emails here.

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Walmart Confirms Expansion of Non-Discrimination Policy, UUA Pushes for Gender Identity Addition

1 Comment | Share On Facebook| Walmart Confirms Expansion of Non-Discrimination Policy, UUA Pushes for Gender Identity Addition Share/Save/Bookmark Nov 18, 2011
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Tim Brennan

glennfarley

Glenn C. Farley

Post by Tim Brennan, treasurer of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and Glenn C. Farley, co-chair of the UUA Committee on Socially Responsible Investing.

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In each of the past five years, the Unitarian Universalist Association has filed a shareholder resolution asking Walmart to add Gender Identity or Expression to its non-discrimination policy.  Last week we were notified by Walmart’s Office of Diversity that they were adopting this policy and were disseminating it throughout their network of stores and distribution centers.  This is a big step towards justice for Walmart employees and perhaps even more importantly, an example to other companies. Walmart is currently the largest company in the Fortune 500 and the largest employer in the nation and, for that matter, the world.  So how Walmart operates can profoundly affect corporate policies and practices worldwide, for better or for worse.

Federal law does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression, and state laws vary widely.  Therefore, protections by employers are extremely important.  While more companies each year add gender identity or expression as a protected class, most companies are still lagging.  According to the Human Rights Campaign, in 2010 69% of the Fortune 100 and 46% of the Fortune 500 had non-discrimination policies that include gender identity or expression. This is up from 11% and 5% respectively in 2003.  Fully 39% of the Fortune 500 offer transgender-inclusive health insurance benefits, up from 1% in 2004.  We hope that the Walmart example will spur additional companies to become more inclusive.

Other companies have changed as well.  The UUA’s resolutions asking for non-discrimination polices on gender identity or expression resulted in policy change at Lowes, Home Depot, Travelers Insurance, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group.  Verizon, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips have so far refused, but our campaign continues.

This is one small, but significant step for Walmart.  Yet the company still has a long way to go to improve its treatment of employees.  Just recently it was announced that the company’s health plan would become more expensive and less widely available.  Advocates both within and outside of the company must continue to push for improvement.

The UUA’s shareholder advocacy program is just one expression of the Standing on the Side of Love campaign – our vision is of a world in which no one is dehumanized through acts of exclusion, oppression, or violence because of their identities.

We know that lasting change only happens in coalition and collaboration. In our broad shareholder advocacy work towards inclusion, anti-oppression and non-violence, we will continue to do our part to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice.

On November 20, we encourage you to stand on the side of love as we observe the International Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), honoring and remembering those murdered through hate and ignorance.

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A Progressive Wal-Mart: Too Good to be True?

No Comments | Share On Facebook| A Progressive Wal-Mart: Too Good to be True? Share/Save/Bookmark Oct 13, 2011
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Daryl Bridges is the Director/Lead Organizer at the Massachusetts Committee for Interfaith Worker Justice.

Recently Wal-Mart has been trumpeting their transgender non-discrimination statement and I agree it is a lovely gesture; however, I fear this is nothing more than an “on paper” change. Wal-Mart has a well documented history of categorically discriminating against women, minorities, and people of non-heteronomative sexual orientations/identities. Wal-Mart takes great care to create a shield from liability by instituting corporate policy that forbids these actions and promise equal pay, equal opportunity for advancement, and equal voice. Instead they enforce discrimination by practice selectively promoting and giving undesirable shifts to those they do not want to see climb the corporate ladder. Most recently Wal-Mart has seen the triumph of these tactics when the courts ruled that a class-action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination could not proceed with one of the main cited reasons being that Wal-Mart has a corporate policy against gender discrimination.

This is part of Wal-Mart’s general tactic of playing to the progressive crowd. They have made large strides in public appearance by fabricating popular policies that have no teeth, by trumpeting their green policies, and by spreading charitable donations broadly to progressive non-profits. For Wal-Mart the cost of creating a feel-good policy that looks positive is almost nothing but the dividends of this false goodwill is massive. Wal-Mart is happy to claim that they are standing on the side of an inclusive, corporate environment but their behavior contradicts their words.

Wal-Mart cannot be trusted to police itself and any discussion about their practices should be met with a call to accountability. Wal-Mart has not changed. They still fire workers for talking about unions. They still discriminate against women and minorities. They still destroy ten jobs for every three they make. They still create and maintain sweatshops and they still pay huge sums into governments that murder and imprison transgendered persons. Wal-Mart has learned to talk the talk but they have not yet chosen to Stand on the Side of Love.

If Wal-Mart is going to change, we most hold them accountable to the policies they make and we must join with our community allies to do so. Please reach out to your local GBLT community and help them ensure that this policy becomes more than a paper-tiger. Wal-Mart can change but only if we make them.

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