Press Releases

Workers to Hold Large Picket Line and Rally at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Response to Increased Retaliation

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Dozens of warehouse workers walked off the job at a Walmart-contracted warehouse Wednesday morning to call for an end to continued retaliation. They will hold a large rally and picket line at 10:30 Thursday morning in the Jurupa Valley in Riverside County.

DETAILS: Workers will hold a rally and picket line at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 15, 11888 Mission Blvd., Mira Loma, CA 95712

“I was fired for trying to make the warehouse where I worked safer,” said David Garcia, a warehouse worker. “It’s been tough. My kids need food, school supplies and an apartment to sleep at night, but right now it is difficult to provide them these basic things.”

Since workers went on strike to protest unfair labor practices and marched 50-miles from Southern California’s Inland Empire to Downtown Los Angeles to win safe jobs this September, working conditions have started to improve, but workers have experienced continued retaliation including terminations, demotions and a drastic reduction in hours.

“Because workers have spoken out about inhumane working conditions, the warehouse company is now scrambling to rent fans, add water coolers and fix broken equipment,” said Guadalupe Palma, a campaign director with Warehouse Workers United. “While it’s good they have acknowledged workers’ concerns about safety are legitimate, it does not excuse the fact that workers who bravely spoke out are being severely retaliated against.”

Workers—who do not have a recognized union—are prepared to strike this week to calling for an end to retaliation and unfair labor practices. Workers load and unload goods at a warehouse operated by NFI industries in Mira Loma, California.

Within the last week, NFI has been frantically installing new ramps, a heavy metal panel that connects shipping containers to the warehouse for loading and unloading, water coolers, fans and fixing other equipment. In September Walmart spokesman Dan Fogelman told news outlets: “Based on our conversation with our providers and visits to many of the facilities, we believe the complaints are either unfounded or, if legitimate, have been addressed.”

“Clearly Walmart’s statement that workers’ claims were false was actually false,” said Guadalupe Palma, a director of Warehouse Workers United, an organization committed to improving warehousing jobs in Southern California’s Inland Empire. “Walmart must intervene to uphold its own stated “Standards for Suppliers” and involve workers in order to eliminate inhumane and illegal working conditions.”

Workers are employed by NFI and a temporary labor agency, Warestaff. One hundred percent of the merchandise that flows through the facility is destined for Walmart stores. As the largest retailer in the world, Walmart dictates the standards of operation in the logistics and distribution industry.

More than 85,000 workers labor in warehouses in Southern California, unloading merchandise from shipping containers that enter through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and loading it onto trucks destined for retail stores like Walmart. The National Labor Relations Board is currently investigating numerous federal charges filed by the warehouse workers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, October 9, 2012
CONTACT: Janna Pea, 202-412-5362, jpea@ufcw.org
Elizabeth Brennan at 213-999-2164
Jorge Amaro, 202-412-4998, jamaro@ufcw.org

Walmart Faces First-Ever Strikes Over its Illegal Retaliation and Attempts to Silence Associates who are Speaking out for Better Jobs

TUESDAY: Ads Supporting Warehouse Workers Blanket Arkansas Newspapers
WEDNESDAY: California and Illinois Warehouse Workers to Join Striking Walmart to Announce Further Calls for Change at Walmart from Corporate Headquarters

LOS ANGELES –As communities across the country raise their voices in calls for changes at Walmart, workers from stores throughout the Dallas-area went on strike this morning in the first-ever Walmart Associate walk-out in Dallas protesting attempts to silence and retaliate against workers for speaking out for improvements on the job.

Walmart workers from stores in Seattle, Miami, the Washington, D.C. area, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area also walked off the job.

Later today warehouse workers, community supporters, including Jobs with Justice, Communications Workers of America and others, and striking Walmart Associates will take their calls for change to Walmart’s global corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart is holding its annual financial analyst meeting. This comes days after Associates in Los Angeles walked-off the job calling for an end to the retaliation.

On Wednesday, warehouse workers will join striking workers and community supporters for a teleconference call for media to announce further steps to call for change.

WHAT:  Tele-conference with Striking Walmart Workers, Community Supporters to Announce New Calls for Change
WHEN:  Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at 11:30 AM EST
WHO:   Striking Walmart workers from Los Angeles and Dallas areas
Walmart Associates and Workers from Walmart-Controlled Warehouses
Sally Greenberg, Executive Director, National Consumers League
Terry O’Neill, President, National Organization of Women
Pastor Edwin Jones, Living Faith Baptist Church and International Ministries
Hector Sanchez, Executive Director of Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
DIAL IN: (888) 886-6603 Password: 20063#

“We cannot continue to allow Walmart’s attempts to silence and retaliate against workers continue,” said Stacey Cottongame, a striking worker from the Ennis, Texas store. Stacey is one of thousands of members of OUR Walmart, the nationwide Associate organization calling for changes at the company. “Our jobs shouldn’t be on the line because we are speaking out for better jobs and a stronger community.”

Additionally today in Bentonville, Walmart executives woke up to paid advertisements in five local papers. The ads, coordinated by consumer watchdog group SumofUs.org, and paid for by supporters of Illinois and Southern California warehouse workers. The ads feature portraits of four top Walmart executives and call on the mega retailer to take responsibility for working conditions inside its contracted warehouses.

“For too long Walmart’s executives have ignored the health and safety of its workers, but now as momentum shifts, the retail giant’s execs are seeing the effect of their ambivalence play out through strikes in their warehouses, and now a series of 11 ads blanketing their hometown newspapers,” SumOfUs.org Executive Director Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman said. “They won’t be able to ignore the workers much longer.”

Walmart workers began walking off the job at 6:30 am this morning at the Ennis store and later joined Associates from the Lancaster store. Together, they met Associates at the Dallas store, who walked off the job and were joined by community supporters. The group protested outside the Dallas store with signs reading, “Stand Up, Live Better, Stop Retaliation” and “Stop Trying to Silence Us.”

Walmart workers and community leaders have been calling on Walmart and Chairman Rob Walton to address take home pay so low that Associates are forced to rely on public programs to support their families and understaffing that is keeping workers from receiving sufficient hours and is also hurting customer service. The company has not only refused to address these concerns that are affecting 1.4 million Associates across the country, it has attempted to silence those who speak out and has retaliated against workers for raising concerns that would to help the company, workers and the community.

The strike in Dallas comes days after Walmart Associates in Los Angeles held the first-ever strike against retaliation. Workers striking at Walmart controlled warehouses outside of Chicago just won an end to illegal retaliation following a 21-day strike during which clergy and community supporters were arrested by riot police during the peaceful protest. Warehouse workers in Southern California were on a 15-day strike that included a six-day, 50-mile pilgrimage for safe jobs. In advance of Walmart’s annual financial analyst meeting on October 10, OUR Walmart members shared concerns about the scheduling and staffing problems to a room full of financial analysts.

As front line Walmart workers are facing these hardships, the company is raking in almost $16 billion a year in profits, executives made more than $10 million each in compensation last year. Meanwhile, the Walton Family – heirs to the Walmart fortune – are the richest family in the country with more wealth than the bottom 42% of American families combined.

Energy around the calls for Walmart to change its treatment of workers and communities has been building. In just one year, OUR Walmart, the unique workers’ organization founded by Walmart Associates, has grown from a group of 100 Walmart workers to an army of thousands of Associates in hundreds of stores across 43 states. Together, OUR Walmart members have been leading the way in calling for an end to double standards that are hurting workers, communities and our economy.

The alleged Mexican bribery scandal, uncovered by the New York Times, has shined a light on the failure of internal controls within Walmart that extend to significant breaches of compliance in stores and along the company’s supply chain. The company is facing yet another gender discrimination lawsuit on behalf of 100,000 women in California and in Tennessee. In the company’s warehousing system, in which Walmart has continually denied responsibility for the working conditions for tens of thousands of people who work for warehouses where they move billions of dollars of goods, workers are facing rampant wage theft and health and safety violations so extreme that they have led to an unprecedented $600,000 in fines. The Department of Labor fined a Walmart seafood supplier for wage and hour violations, and Human Rights Watch has spoken out about the failures of controls in regulating suppliers overseas, including a seafood supplier in Thailand where trafficking and debt bondage were cited.

Financial analysts are also joining the call for Walmart to create better checks and balances, transparency and accountability that will protect workers and communities and strengthen the company. At the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, OUR Walmart member Jackie Goebel brought a stadium full of shareholders to their feet applauding her call for an end to the short staffing that’s hurting workers and customer service. A resolution proposed by Associate-shareholders to rein in executive pay received unprecedented support, and major pension funds that voted their shares against Walmart CEO and members of the board this June amounting to a ten-fold increase, and overall 1 in 3 shares not held by the Walton family against the company’s leadership.

These widespread problems have also thwarted Walmart’s plans for growth, particularly in urban markets. Calling the company a “bad actor,” New York City mayoral candidates have all been outspoken in their opposition to Walmart entering the city without addressing labor and community relations’ problems. This month, the city’s largest developer announced an agreement with a union-grocery store at a site that Walmart had hoped would be its first location in New York. In Los Angeles, mayoral candidates are refusing to accept campaign donations from the deep pockets of Walmart, and in Boston, Walmart was forced to suspend its expansion into the city after facing significant community opposition.

###

From SumOfUs.org:

BENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS – With Walmart workers walking off the job in protest of working conditions, corporate accountability organization SumOfUs.org has purchased 11 advertisements in the Bentonville local daily newspapers the Benton County Daily Record and Rogers Morning News, as well as the weekly local, the Weekly Vista.

View ads here: http://bit.ly/sumofus-walmart

The ads will run starting Tuesday, Oct. 9 as warehouse workers and Walmart associates converge on Walmart’s annual Meeting for the Investment Community to protest to protest the abuses they regularly suffer at work and announce the next steps in their campaign for justice. Earlier this month a SumOfUs petition calling on Walmart execs to take responsibility for conditions in its supply chain warehouses reached nearly 100,000 signatures.

“Walmart executives are turning a blind eye to the grievances of workers in Walmart stores and the warehouses in its supply chain, so we’re taking the workers’ message to a place they can’t ignore,” SumOfUs.org Executive Director Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman said. “When top Walmart execs read over the daily paper with their morning coffee, they’ll be confronted by massive portrait shots of themselves, alongside our members’ message of solidarity with the striking workers.”

“For too long Walmart’s executives have ignored the health and safety of its workers, but now as momentum shifts, the retail giant’s execs are seeing the effect of their ambivalence play out through strikes in their warehouses, and now a series of 11 ads blanketing their hometown newspapers. They won’t be able to ignore the workers much longer.”

“For fifty years Walmart has been fighting a war against workers, driving down wages and crushing attempts to organize around the world,” Ms. Stinebrickner-Kauffman said. “But this month, an incredible new chapter opened in the fight against Walmart’s race-to-the-bottom economics, when workers in Walmart’s warehouses in California and Chicago went on strike.”

“These workers are sick of toiling in 100+-degree heat without access to clean water, they’re sick of poverty wages and most of all, they’re sick of being ignored by management, so they walked off the job and in California marched 50 miles to Walmart’s HQ in downtown Los Angeles to confront some of Walmart top executives.”

“Walmart’s executives are starting to feel the heat of this growing movement for ethical workplaces, and it’s high time they start paying more attention to people, rather than solely focusing on Walmart’s bottom line.”

The advertisements feature the picture of top Walmart executives Mike Duke (President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.), Bill Simon (President and CEO, Walmart U.S.), Johnnie C. Dobbs, Jr. (Executive Vice President, Logistics, Walmart U.S.) and Chairman of the Board of Directors Rob Walton.

“The worst conditions exist in Walmart-contracted warehouses, where Walmart avoids responsibility for workers because it does not hire them directly,” Ms. Stinebrickner Kauffman said. “But it built the warehouses and hired subcontractors to manage them and since 90% of goods moving through these warehouses are destined for Walmart, it clearly has the power to raise standards throughout the industry.”

“As long as Walmart can escape responsibility for its suppliers’ behavior, there will be no systemic changes at the warehouses.”

For Immediate Release: Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012
Media Contacts: Leah Fried, Warehouse Workers for Justice, 773-550-3022
Mark Meinster, Warehouse Workers for Justice, 773-405-3022

In an historic victory, striking warehouse workers at a Walmart facility in Elwood, Illinois won their principle demand for an end to illegal retaliation against workers protesting poor conditions. They will return to work Saturday with full pay for the time they were on strike.

Once back at work, they continue the fight for safe working conditions, fair pay for all hours worked and an end to discrimination.

Join a telephonic press conference at 11 a.m., Tuesday, Oct. 9 to hear from the victorious workers. Please RSVP to leah@warehouseworker.org for call-in information.

During the 21-day strike, workers received a tremendous outpouring of support. On Oct. 1 strikers and their supporters shut down Walmart’s largest distribution center in North America, while clergy, community and labor leaders blocked the road leading out of the warehouse to support workers on strike at the Walmart warehouse in Elwood, near Joliet, Illinois.

The strike and rally in Illinois and a similar strike to protest retaliation in Walmart’s contracted warehouses in Southern California brought Walmart’s distribution system into the public eye to protest unfair labor practices and other abuses in the nation’s largest distribution centers.

On Oct. 5, Walmart received a letter from more than 100,000 supporters demanding Walmart take responsibility for what is happening in warehouses in Illinois and Southern California.

Striking Roadlink worker Ted Ledwa said: “With this victory, we forced the company to respect our rights. We showed that when workers are united we can stand up to the biggest corporations in the world and win.”

Warehouse workers labor under extreme temperatures, lifting thousands of boxes that can weigh up to 250lbs each. Workplace injuries are common; workers rarely earn a living wage or have any benefits.

Warehouse Workers for Justice is an Illinois worker center dedicated to fighting for quality jobs in the distribution industry that can sustain families and communities. The strikers are members of the Warehouse Worker Organizing Committee.

###

From Assemblymember Norma Torres’ website:

Assemblymember Norma Torres announced today that the State Legislature has approved Assembly Bill 1855. This legislation protects warehouse worker’s rights by prohibiting contracts or agreements where a contractor knows or should know that there are insufficient funds to comply with basic labor laws. The bill has been sent to Governor Brown for his signature.

“AB 1855 will provide warehouse workers in the logistics industry the same protections against labor exploitation as temporary workers in the construction, farm labor, janitorial or security industries when they are hired by temporary staffing agencies,” said Torres.

The Inland Empire is home to one of the largest distribution centers for imports in the country. Between 1990 and 2007, temporary employment in the Inland Empire warehouses grew by 575 percent. A decade ago, warehouse companies had 80 percent direct employees and twenty percent temporary workers. Today, it is just about the opposite.

The warehouse and logistics industry is very important to the Inland Empire,” said Torres. “I have personally visited several warehouse and temporary staffing agencies, and found many that are providing a valuable service to our economy and our region. Unfortunately, there are some companies that are less scrupulous and have been fined for violations of our health, safety and labor laws. AB 1855 will ensure that our local warehouse workers are protected.”

AB 1855 received final approval in the State Assembly on a 53 – 23 vote. For more information on AB 1855 please visit www.leginfo.ca.gov.