Black Friday may be most famous for doorbuster shopping deals, but among progressives it's becoming a regular holiday for labor demonstrations. Friday marked the third consecutive year of scattered but highly visible protests against Walmart. Demonstrators, along with an unknown number of Walmart strikers, are calling for better pay and scheduling practices from the world's largest retailer.
On Thursday and Friday, photos on Twitter tagged with #walmartstrikers showed sizable protests in D.C., Pittsburgh, Northern New Jersey, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Calif., and St. Paul, Minn., among other areas. The protests were led by OUR Walmart, a union-backed worker group, alongside community and labor groups in different cities.
Dan Schlademan, campaign director of Making Change at Walmart, a
project of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union,
said on a call with reporters Friday that he expects the number of
strikers to be in the hundreds by the end of the day, though the group
could not provide a specific number of workers who'd submitted strike
notices to their bosses.
"All the signs that we're seeing is that this is going to be the biggest day ever," Schlademan said.
Brooke
Buchanan, a spokeswoman for Walmart, told HuffPost that the retailer
was more concerned with serving its customers than with protests it
views as union stunts. According to Buchanan, more than 22 million
shoppers came to Walmart stores on Thanksgiving alone this year.
"We're
really focused on our customers," Buchanan said. "We've got millions of
customers coming in [on Thanksgiving] and Friday, and we're making sure
they have a safe and exciting shopping experience."
Walmart Black Friday Protests Hit Major Cities With Calls For '$15 And Full Time'
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