It's not Friday yet. Hell, not even Thanksgiving has passed us by and yet people are already lining up to get a great deal on crap they really don't need in the festive act of being a capitalist and a corporate whore. Meanwhile, Walmart workers prepare for Black Friday, not by setting up tents, but by preparing to hit the picket lines...
Remember that scene from last year when a woman used pepper spray to clear out the shopping competition at a Walmart store in Los Angeles? Charges still haven`t been filed even though the woman turned herself in.
This year, Walmart is looking at problems from within as employees continue their strikes around the country, like the one over the weekend in Dallas. And the one in Mira Loma, Calif., where six warehouse employees blocked the streets and ended up in jail.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union is calling for a massive walkout on Black Friday, even though very few Walmart employees belong to the union
The strikers and their supporters complain that Walmart doesn’t pay them a decent wage and retaliates whenever someone complains.
Walmart responded by filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the union of illegally organizing picket lines and other demonstrations.
The threatened Black-Friday walkout comes just days after striking union workers failed to come to terms with the maker of Twinkies and wonder bread.
Yeah, and we know how that turned out.
It's really shocking to think that people are actually jumping behind the narrative that these people are suddenly lazy or don't want to work Thanksgiving. This is exactly how America's big corporations want us to see this course of action. Opposed to the reality that it's not the fact that working on Thanksgiving that is offensive, it's that they're not properly compensating the workers for their work normally and this is the one time that it will hit them where it counts.
It's really sad that there is actually demand for these jobs, these god awful shitty jobs that people would gladly fill these positions because they are in a desperate situation that has been facilitated by our government and its wealthy corporate backers. Because that's the truth about it. America's big corporations want us to think this way. They want us to fight for these unfair, underpaying jobs that make you work while sick or injured, that book you for as many hours as they could legally do so all under part time so that they can avoid paying for your health benefits, then force you to work every shift they give you otherwise you face some sort of job loss.
What sort of world do we live in that we're so desperate to not only tolerate Walmart's unjust practices, but we will actually line up around the block to actually work there because there's no other such job opening.
Then you have those who blame the workers saying things like "well, they should have done better in high school" or "if they don't like it, they should quit." While that is true to some degree, it doesn't factor in social economic differences. Not to mention the fact that we're openly accepting a company treating workers this way? Don't even get me started on the amount of hate addressed towards unions.
So how about we all don't cheer for the corporate behemoths while they crush dissent and subject people and cities to obscene abuses in the working world. Let's not just stand idly by watching this race to the bottom and then cry about the disappearing middle class. As it stands, the current economic situation is as follows; in terms of adjusted dollars, the minimum wage hasn't been this low since the 1970's.
How about we, you know, pay the workers a wage they can actually live on.
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