Walmart Workers Ready to Strike Across U.S. Over Wages

by William White | September 5, 2013 12:51 pm

[1]Walmart (WMT[2]) employees in 15 different cities[3] across the United States are planning to protest on Thursday.

The protest is being held against Walmart due to complaints by workers of low wages and illegally fired employees. The protest will include a march in Los Angeles and a rally outside of Yahoo (YHOO[4]) CEO Marissa Mayer’s penthouse apartment. Mayer is currently a Walmart board member. A petition will be delivered to Christopher Williams, chairman of Williams Capital Group, who is also a Walmart board member. Other activities related to the protest are expected to take place in Washington D.C., Chicago, Boston, Sacramento, Miami and Dallas. The protest is expected to be the largest one since 400 employees walked off during their shifts last November, reports The Guardian.

“As the nation’s largest employer, Walmart and the Walton family should be raising standards, not lowering them,” Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, told NBC 6[5]. “Walmart should share its prosperity with workers and publicly commit to paying workers $25,000 a year for full time work.”

For its part, Walmart issued the following statement:

“This group of demonstrators is primarily made up of union members and activists. With very few exceptions, the cast members don’t work at Walmart nor are they affiliated with the company in any way. The fact that virtually no associates are participating in this event should tell you that the opinions being expressed aren’t representative of the vast majority of the 1.3 million associates who work for us.”

A WMT spokesman added that the average full-time hourly wage at Walmart is $12.83/hour – more than $25,000 a year.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/09/walmart-workers-ready-to-strike-across-u-s-over-wages/

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