Demanding Respect From Walmart

By Anita Nath

A fundamental right of workers should be to work in a safe environment and to be treated with respect. Unfortunately, there are many retail employers – including the largest, Walmart – who do not always provide such a workplace, particularly in regard to the treatment of older employees.

Of the 1.4 million Walmart workers in the US, 300,000 are 55 and older. Many are hired on a part-time basis and paid a low wage.

Despite many older employees being cashiers and door greeters, they are repeatedly required to perform physical work outside of their job duties, including washing toilets, cleaning windows, and lifting heavy items. When refusing to complete these tasks, the employees are often reprimanded or fired.

It is reported by older workers that Walmart regularly violates their own policy of providing 15 minute breaks at regular intervals. These older workers report that their breaks, when they get them, are often not spread out over the shift but rather put at the end of their work day.

These are just some of the issues that older employees have with the retail Goliath that made billions in profit last year.

Change is clearly needed at Walmart for workers to get fair and respectful treatment.

OUR Walmart is a new organization made up of current and former Walmart “associates” who care deeply about providing good customer service and making Walmart better. The lack of respect of workers by Walmart led to the creation of OUR Walmart. There are currently 201 local OUR Walmart members in the Puget Sound area, 11 of whom recently went to Bentonville, Arkansas to corporate headquarters to demand respect on the job. OUR Walmart asserts that the treatment of older workers, in particular, has deteriorated at Walmart.

After launching their organization just last month, OUR Walmart is growing. It has served to empower Walmart employees to stand together. They are already seeing an impact. Some recent accomplishments include returning wrongfully fired employees to work, protecting employees from harassment from management, and being a resource when employees experience disrespect.

In order to support the local efforts to change Walmart, PSARA members voted to join the Making Change at Walmart coalition at PSARA’s July 7th membership meeting. The goal of that coalition is to hold Walmart accountable to local workplace and community standards. That means supporting OUR Walmart workers in the Puget Sound area as they organize for respect at their stores, and also support local communities as they organize for standards that promote good jobs and healthy communities.

If you would like to be more involved in the coalition work in your area, please contact Elena Perez at eperez@ufcw21.org, 206.436.6544.

(Anita Nath is a member of the PSARA Executive Board)

‘OUR Walmart’ launched

By Will Parry

PSARA Vice President Bette Reed and I witnessed labor history in the making on the evening of Tuesday, June 7.

The setting: A modest hall at Highline Community College. PSARA was one of an impressive array of faith and social action organizations gathered to support the launch of OUR Walmart – shorthand for Organization United for Respect at Walmart.

The stars of the evening were a group of courageous women and men who actually work – or have worked – at Walmart. One after another, each “associate” -- the company term for its workers –- spoke of life under the soulless merchandising behemoth: Poverty-level wages. Too few hours for a decent paycheck. Arbitrary discipline. Above all, lack of respect.

A heroic special guest, Kalpona Akter, gave a first-hand account of the plight of workers in the Asian sweatshops that make the products Walmart sells. A leader in the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, Akter is the victim of employer-fabricated charges. Currently out on bail, she faces life in prison or possibly the death penalty if convicted.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 brought the Walmart workers and the community leaders together as part of a nationwide campaign to persuade Walmart to become a decent corporate citizen that respects its workers and its suppliers. The Highline Community College meeting is being replicated in other cities as the campaign picks up momentum.

“At the UFCW, we know what makes our union strong: members standing together for respect and dignity in the workplace,” said Elena Perez, Local 21 community organizer. “In the grocery industry, union contracts guarantee protections and a voice on the job. But at the company with the most grocery sales in America, our fellow workers are not receiving the respect they deserve.

“We are making change at Walmart,” Perez said. “We are making change by working directly with Walmart Associates to claim the respect on the job they deserve. We are making change by holding Walmart corporate managers accountable to hourly employees and the public for their practices.”