June 24, 2013

 

Since Friday Walmart fired 11 brave workers who just returned from a strike protest intimidation. Now those workers need us to get their backs, so executives see consumers won't let Walmart silence workers who stand up for their rights. Tell Walmart to hire them back now!

<http://act.sumofus.org/go/1930?t=1&akid=1847.965787.2YBN__>

 

Lisa Lopez was fired from Walmart on Friday, for leading strikes against intimidation of workers.

 

She was working full-time full-time at Walmart, but she didn't make enough to feed her teenagers and young grandson. She's had to apply for food stamps -- and even with public assistance, her family occasionally has to live on just bread and water. Fed up with poverty wages, Lisa joined OUR Walmart, the association of Walmart workers who've been protesting for better pay and decent working conditions.

 

Lisa became a leader among her fellow Walmart workers. She joined the strike on Black Friday, and walked off the job in the company of Congressman Alan Grayson. And this month, she was one of hundreds of workers who travelled to Walmart's shareholders' meeting to protest Walmart’s brutal campaign of intimidation against OUR Walmart members. And then just after she returned to work, Lisa was fired, along with 10 other workers who went on strike.

 

Walmart's bosses have insisted that they're not trying to intimidate workers and that any associate can bring their concerns to management at any time. But it's obvious that Walmart is trying to silence protesting workers, in blatant violation of labor law.

 

Tell Walmart: End intimidation of workers now. Re-hire the workers you fired. <http://act.sumofus.org/go/1930?t=2&akid=1847.965787.2YBN__>

 

Since their historic strike last Black Friday, Walmart workers have done an amazing job raising awareness about Walmart's exploitative policies and their consequences for all of us. They even provoked Congress to release a report showing that each Walmart superstore costs taxpayers around a million dollars each year, because workers are so poorly paid that they need to rely on Medicaid, food stamps, and other public assistance. But Walmart has responded to workers' protest with over 150 documented instances of intimidation and retaliation.

 

Walmart says it has good reasons for firing workers, but it's using unbelievably flimsly pretexts. Lisa got a warning for wearing earings at work (which plenty of other workers do without consequences), and the reason her bosses gave for her termination was that she brought Walmart's own rulebook to work because she believed the rules were beign enforced unfairly. Walmart says that workers were fired for violating its attendance policy. That's ridiculous: the workers were on strike, and it's totally illegal to fire workers for striking.  But with the National Labor Relations Board hamstrung by business interests in Congress, it can take a long, long time for labor law to actually be enforced. But we don't have to wait: let's remind Walmart that it's not about to improve its image by breaking the law and bullying workers.

 

As Walmart's sales and favorability ratings in opinion polls plummet, it's clear that decades of unethical behavior are catching up with the world's largest retailer. But instead of changing its ways, the company is trying to silence its critics. Walmart thinks that if it can scare its workers away from joining OUR Walmart, the workers' association, the pressure to improve working conditions will go away. Of course, Walmart's wrong: workers are already getting ready to fight back. Now consumers like us need to show Walmart that this thuggish behavior is unnacceptable.

 

Click here to demand that Walmart re-hire all the workers it fired after they went on strike. <http://act.sumofus.org/go/1930?t=3&akid=1847.965787.2YBN__>

 

Thanks for all you do,

Rob, Kaytee, and the team at SumOfUs.org

 

 

 

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More information:

 

Firing of Five Walmart Strikers Condemned by Rep. Ellison: 'Completely Unjust and Illegal <http://act.sumofus.org/go/1924?t=4&akid=1847.965787.2YBN__> ' The Nation, June 22.

 

 <http://www.sumofus.org> SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. You can follow us on Twitter <http://www.twitter.com/sum_of_us> , and like us on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/pages/SumOfUs/181924628560212> .

 

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