The union-backed group OUR Walmart said Friday its largest protests against the retailer on the day after Thanksgiving will occur at 10 locations nationally. The group did not give any specific estimates for the size of the events or how many Walmart employees they expected to join them.
“I don’t have estimates yet, but we’re expecting this to be the largest Black Friday strikes and protests ever,” said Giovanna Frank-Vitale, spokeswoman for Making Change at Walmart, a group affiliated with OUR Walmart.
The activists, who have said they are planning protests at 160 locations nationally, said the largest events would be in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento, Calif., Tampa, Fla., Washington and Baker, La.
OUR Walmart has held regular protests against the retailer, demanding it pay its employees a minimum of $15 an hour. For the last several years, it has held events on the day after Thanksgiving — also known as “Black Friday” — hoping to disrupt the stores on one of the busiest Christmas shopping days of the year.
The events have been short on actual Walmart employees, though, with reporters often able to locate a handful. The activists say that is because the retailer has retaliated against its workers. The National Labor Relations Board is investigating those complaints, but no charges have been filed.
“Workers are being attacked, harassed, illegally threatened and terminated by Walmart. So we’ll be standing up to that [on] Black Friday,” said Dan Schlademan, director of Making Change at Walmart.
OUR Walmart, whose name stands for “Organization United for Respect at Walmart,” describes itself as a grassroots organization of Walmart employees. It is financially backed by the 1.3-million member United Farm and Commercial Workers union. UFCW has listed the group as a subsidiary in Labor Department filings.
UFCW has long sought to organize the retail giant’s estimated 1.3 million employees. The union’s own members work for many of Walmart’s competitors, such as Giant, Safeway and Kroger.
Business groups point to that as proof that the protests are just a union front. “OUR Walmart doesn’t represent employees, they represent the United Food and Commercial Workers union. No amount of street theater and run-ins with the law changes that,” said Glenn Spencer, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative.
