Activists in Ferguson aren't the only ones calling for a Black Friday Blackout this year.
In a country where shopping is almost a religion, today, Black Friday, is the holiest of holies. Many stores are offering deep discounts, sparking a retail frenzy. One company participating heavily in the madness is discount retailer Walmart. But not everyone is reveling in their heady atmosphere of low, low prices. Workers at the store, who often earn the federal minimum wage of just $7.25 per hour, want a bigger slice of the pie.
For the third consecutive year, demonstrators across the US are picketing outside thousands of Walmart locations. Their demand: a living wage of $15 per hour. They’re being helped by a powerful benefactor — MoveOn.org Civic Action, a liberal public policy advocacy group formed in 1998 in response to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. They also played a key role in helping Barack Obama win the 2008 Democratic nomination.
But today, they have Walmart in their crosshairs. The company, owned by the Walton family with a net worth of more than $150 billion, is the largest private employer in the world and the biggest retailer on the planet. They make $16 billion a year in pure profit, but not much of that trickles down to the rank-and-file employees who run their stores every day. According to MoveOn.org, the majority of Walmart’s “associates” earn less than $25,000 per year.
— Feminist Majority (@MajoritySpeaks) November 28, 2014
“I work 40 hours per week and per year I haven’t made over $25,000, so I’m still relying on government assistance,” Melinda Gaino, an employee of the chain, told Al Jazeera.
MoveOn says many employees must rely on government aid to make ends meet. A report by advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness says Walmart’s low wages cost US taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion per year in public assistance, including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing.
To help Walmart employees who have a grievance against the company, MoveOn is supporting industrial action by asking people to donate $3 to a strike fund for workers who refuse to line the company’s pockets this Black Friday. Their goal is to raise $100,000 — just 0.001% of the $9 billion bonanza the company is expected to reap today. Despite their efforts, only a few hundred workers out of a total of 1.9 million are expected to down tools. Walmart is fiercely anti-union and it’s likely many of those who choose to picket will be told not to come back to work.
— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) November 28, 2014
A spokesperson for the company says those who are protesting are “paid union demonstrators” who do not represent the views of most employees. “It’s unfortunate that this group attempts to disrupt the holiday spirit to push their agenda. The reality is that Walmart is focused every day on providing our associates with opportunities for job growth.”
The situation for Walmart employees is part of a larger national debate over the effects of raising the federal minimum wage. Many want to see it raised to $15 per hour. Economist Milton Friedman has come out against such a policy, claiming: “people whose skills are not sufficient to justify that kind of a wage will be unemployed.”
On the other hand, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said raising the minimum wage will not spur big companies like Walmart and McDonald’s to cut jobs because such jobs cannot be outsourced or automated.
For employees who tend to the Walton family’s massive empire, such academic arguments mean little on the cold Friday after Thanksgiving, when bellies are still empty and the lights are about to be shut off.
