Wal-Mart workers plan mass Black Friday strike

Following a day of modest protests, employees announce they will repeat and expand last year's wave of walkouts

Published September 6, 2013 4:46PM (EDT)

                                      (Wikimedia Commons)
(Wikimedia Commons)

While Thursday's protests around the U.S. by Wal-Mart workers and their supporters were, as MSNBC's Ned Resnikoff put it, "muted," they have been followed by a grand statement and plan from labor organizers: For the second year in a row, Wal-Mart will be hit by a wave of strikes on the busiest shopping day of the year.

As our friend Josh Eidelson reported for the Nation:

Walmart workers will mount what may be the biggest-ever US strike against the retail giant. In an e-mailed statement, a campaign closely tied to the United Food & Commercial Workers union promised “widespread, massive strikes and protests for Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving. A Black Friday strike last year, in which organizers say over 400 workers walked off the job, was the largest and highest-profile action to date by the union-backed, non-union workers’ group OUR Walmart, and the largest US strike in the company’s five-decade history.

Last year's Black Friday strikes saw workers walk off the job along the retail giant's supply chain in 100 U.S. cities.


By Natasha Lennard

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com.

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Black Friday Labor Rights Our Walmart Protests Retail Strikes The Labor Movement Wal-mart Walkouts Walmart Workers