Wal-Mart workers threaten disruption on Black Friday
13 Oct 2012
Wal-Mart workers have threatened a work disruption on Black Friday, if it refused to give in to demands by labour aimed at organising employees of the world's largest retailer.
The holiday shopping season starting November is the largest period for purchases during the year for retailers, and Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, was named so because it was traditionally when retailers would become profitable.
The first-ever strike by Wal-Mart workers took place on 9 October, with workers in 12 cities walking off their jobs, calling for the retailer to address wages and cease retaliation against workers who sought to organise. The group, OUR Walmart, a labour-backed organisation advocates on behalf of Wal-mart's workers (OUR stands for Organization United for Respect).
Wal-Mart workers abandoned their duties in Chicago, Dallas, the DC area, Miami, Orlando, Seattle, and across California and made their way to Wal-Mart's annual meeting with investment analysts to plead their case. However the action was not quite as impressive as it might sound, the entire strike included just 88 workers, according to Salon.com, and 100 arriving at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.
Meanwhile, the world's largest retailer, plans to hire more than 50,000 temporary workers in its US stores for the holiday shopping season. According to the Arkansas-based company's statement, current store employees also would be offered more hours of work.
Holiday hiring has been on the rise since retailers cut workers during the recession in 2008, an analysis of government data by the National Retail Federation revealed.
