Category: Labor

Walmart Black Friday Protests Hit Major Cities With Calls for ‘$15 and Full Time’

By Dave Jamieson

Huffington Post

Nov 28, 2014 – 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."

In D.C., a crowd estimated at 200 to 400 people assembled outside the Walmart store on H Street Northwest, calling on the retailer to commit to "$15 and full time" — a wage of $15 per hour, the same rate demanded by fast-food strikers, and a full-time schedule for those who want it. One of OUR Walmart’s top criticisms of the retailer is that part-time workers don’t get enough hours.

The protest was large enough to draw the D.C. police, who stood at the store’s doors and dispersed the crowd after about an hour.

Continue reading Walmart Black Friday Protests Hit Major Cities With Calls for ‘$15 and Full Time’

Bay Area Nurses Strike Over Patient Care

Big Hospitals Get Tax Breaks for Community Benefits — But Don’t Earn Them

Kaiser nurses strike over patient care -- as Kaiser shortchanges care for low-income people

Kaiser nurses strike over patient care — as Kaiser shortchanges care for low-income people

Editor’s note: As Kaiser nurses walk the picket lines (we will be reporting more on the strike later this week) it’s worth noting that these “nonprofit” hospitals aren’t all about the public good.

By Anna Challet

New American Media

NOVEMBER 13, 2014 — Not-for-profit hospitals, like Kaiser in San Francisco, receive tax breaks in exchange for providing benefits to their communities — services like charity care for people who are uninsured. But are the not-for-profit hospitals in California providing enough of these services to earn their tax breaks?

Not by a long shot, according to a new study by The Greenlining Institute.

According to the study, not-for-profit hospitals in the state take in over twice as much money in tax breaks as they spend on community benefits. And an investigation into the community benefit spending of three large hospitals in San Francisco – Kaiser, St. Mary’s Medical Center and California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) – revealed shoddy data reporting on where the money is going.

“It’s an unfair exchange. Hospitals receive about $3.2 billion in tax breaks because of their not-for-profit status, but from what we can see at the state level, there’s only about $1.4 billion going back into the community through their community benefits,” says Carla Saporta, Greenlining’s health policy director and one of the study’s authors.

Continue reading Bay Area Nurses Strike Over Patient Care

NYC Workers Target Walmart in $15 Hourly Wage Fight

By Pat Fry

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

Oct 18, 2014 – The fight for a $15 minimum hourly wage escalated in the streets of New York City Oct 17 with several hundred union and community allies demanding the right to organize and a living wage.

The two largest retail workers’ unions joined forces in support of organizing drives at Walmart, a campaign supported by the UFCW and Zara’s, a national women’s clothing store chain, where workers are organizing a union of the RWDSU.

The march in midtown Manhattan stopped at Zara’s across from Bloomingdale’s Dept Store whose workers are represented by RWDSU and delivered petitions to management in support of the union campaign.

The protesters then marched to the Park Avenue address of Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart fortune – worth an estimated $35 billion. In front of Walton’s posh penthouse building, protesters chanted, “Alice, Alice, You Can’t Hide – We Can See Your Greedy Side.”

A delegation attempted to deliver 1,600 signatures on a petition in support of Walmart workers. Then in planned civil disobedience several workers and supporters sat in the street until they were taken away by police.

The campaign now is gearing up for another Black Friday protest at Walmart stores around the country on Nov. 28, the biggest shopping day of the year “to hold Walmart and the Walton family publicly accountable for their poor treatment of Walmart workers!”