THE STORY OF A WALMART STRIKE
By David Bacon
TruthOut OpEd
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12822-anatomy-of-the-walmart-strike-one-day-at-a-time
SAN LEANDRO, CA (11/17/12) -- On past Black Fridays, the
nation's annual post-Thanksgiving shopping celebration, Walmart
stores have seen such a crush of shoppers that people have been
trampled trying to get through the doors. On this coming Black
Friday, however, shoppers are more likely to see protesting workers..
People have been criticizing the chain's low wages and unfair
competition with local businesses for years. But for a long time the
company has been able to keep its workers from joining in. Where it
could, Walmart has tried to give itself a paternalistic,
we're-all-one-big-family face. Where that hasn't worked, it's
resorted to the age-old tactics of firings and fear.
But Walmart workers are waking up. Supported by a number of
unions, they've organized a series of work stoppages, the latest and
most extensive of which will take place on Black Friday. They call
their organization OURWalmart (Organization United for Respect at
Walmart).
Strikes at Walmart stores are usually short walkouts by
groups of mostly-young people, propelled by pent-up anger at abuse by
managers and wages so low no one can really live on them. My heart
goes out to these workers. I, too, was fired more than once for
trying to organize a union where I worked. I remember how it felt to
be an open activist in a plant where the company made no secret of
its hatred for what we wanted - a union.
So when I went to take pictures at a walkout at the San
Leandro Walmart, I wanted to make visible the faces of people with
the courage to defy their boss. And I wanted to see how people who
like that union idea, as I do, can help keep the company from firing
them. This is what I saw.
We got together in the parking lot of the BART rapid transit
station a few blocks from the store. Several dozen supporters joined
a handful of workers who'd already been fired, along with a couple of
associates (as the workers call themselves) from other Walmarts in
the area. Together marched down Hesperian Boulevard, through the
parking lot, to the doors.
Once enough people had gathered, both fired and currently
employed workers held a brief memorial for Enrique, an associate
who'd recently died. Inside the store, they'd set up a small
memorial outside the break room. The crowd outside walked solemnly
through the doors and down the aisles heading for it, carrying
Enrique's photograph in front.
Raymond Bravo, who works in the Richmond store, and other
workers held a banner as they walked past the shelves and shoppers.
Misty Tanner later told me she'd been fired after several years at
Walmart, most recently as a member of a crew doing renovations at the
store in Richmond. What must she have felt, walking through the
aisles of Walmart, where she'd been terminated not long before?
These fired workers are very present in the minds of those
still working. I remembered my own experience, after I and several
friends were terminated and blacklisted at a Silicon Valley
semiconductor plant. We tried not to disappear too. It wasn't just
that we didn't want to feel the company had beaten us. We found it
actually reduced the fear among the union supporters who were still
working. They could see we didn't just disappear (what the company
undoubtedly wanted). We refused to become a bad dream to frighten
people. Everyone knew we'd been fired anyway. Remaining present in
people's lives meant we weren't a dark secret people feared talking
about.
I could see that the Walmart workers, both working and fired,
still cared for each other. They too were not about to forget what
the company had done, or let anyone else forget either.
At the door to the break room, a worker who'd clocked out,
Dominic Ware, stood by as we laid our carnations on the floor in
memory of Enrique. Two store managers stood by watching us. Another
followed us, yelling in a loud voice that we had no right to be
there. He was especially bothered by photographs, and kept putting
his hand in front of the camera to stop me from taking them.
It was pretty obvious that they wanted to disrupt what was
intended to be a respectful and solemn remembrance for Enrique. Even
further, they tried to make absolutely sure that every worker in the
store knew exactly how much the company hated what was happening.
Dominic stayed calm, an example to his coworkers that no one needed
to be frightened.
Supporters and workers together put their flowers on the
store floor. I wondered how long it would take for managers to
remove them, and all the evidence of this job action.
Misty Tanner, a Walmart worker fired because she wants the
right to organize..
After we left the store, Dominic spoke at a short rally
outside, while the sun set and it grew dark. Nurses from the
California Nurses Association, longshore and warehouse workers from
the ILWU, machinist union representatives, young community activists
and other supporters stood together with the Walmart workers.
Three workers from this store, Dominic Ware, Marsela
Lopez-Navarro and Cecilia Gurule, had clocked out and joined the
rally. That took courage. Everyone in the store knows the company
not only hates unions, but also has fired workers who want to
organize.
Once the rally was over, workers were unsure whether the
company would let them return to their jobs. So everyone got behind
them and marched back to the door, where a manager met them.
Dominic, Cecilia and Marsela then read him a statement declaring
their right to participate in collective action -- the basic activity
involved in forming a workers' association or a union. If the
company tried to keep them off the job or retaliated against them,
they warned, it would be a violation of Federal labor law.
Then we all walked back into the store, accompanying Dominic
and Cecilia to the break room. There the key test was whether they
would be able to punch the time clock and go back to work. It's hard
to describe how good it felt to see Dominic come out of the break
room in his work vest and go back to his job.
I was never able to go back to work at National
Semiconductor, or the other workplaces where I was fired. In our
Walmart demonstration there were fired workers who shared that bitter
experience. But for this one evening, we were able to help Dominic,
Marsela and Cecelia do what should be their right without question -
challenge their employer and declare their open support for the right
to organize.
No one should have to be afraid that such a basic right of
free thought, speech or association might cost them their job. Yet
the reality in this country is that it so often does. And at
Walmart, the human casualties are very much present.
But for one evening direct action by courageous workers,
supported by people living in the community around them, kept firings
from happening. That was a big step toward making that right
something that exists in real life, not just on paper.
Coming in 2013 from Beacon Press:
The Right to Stay Home: Ending Forced Migration and the
Criminalization of Immigrants
KPFA Interview with Yuying Chen, Chinese factory worker and health
and safety activist (advance to 32:40)
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/86070
See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and
Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002
See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US
Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575
See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border
(University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html
Entrevista de David Bacon con activistas de #yosoy132 en UNAM
Interview of David Bacon by activists of #yosoy132 at UNAM (in Spanish)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyF6AJQa9po&feature=relmfu
Two lectures on the political economy of migration by David Bacon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GgDWf9eefE&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd4OLdaoxvg&feature=related
For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org
--
__________________________________
David Bacon, Photographs and Stories
http://dbacon.igc.org
__________________________________
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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