Global protest against the Waltons family.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: Protestors in India joined a global campaign against Walmart for better pay and respect at the workplace, though with a twist: the demand was to ensure fair competition for street vendors.
In Gurgaon, Haryana, some 300 protesters assembled outside of Walmart’s headquarters to call on the company to respect the rights of street vendors across India by ensuring fair competition.
The protest was coordinated to coincide with a global protest against Walmart, encompassing 10 countries, according to a press release.
Walmart workers are calling for the world’s largest private employer and its owners – the Waltons – to provide decent wages and good jobs in protests across the globe. With the support of UNI Global Union and its affiliates, Walmart workers in 10 countries, including United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, are standing up to expose Walmart’s alleged bad labor practices throughout the company’s stores, warehouses and global supply chain, said the release.
“I’m working to build the profits of the richest family on the globe, while putting my safety at risk just to go into work,” said a supply chain worker. “The Waltons need to see and hear what they are doing to families around the globe. It’s shameful.”
Fed up with barely scraping by on Walmart low-pay, part-time work and illegal treatment of workers, Walmart workers are calling on Walmart’s owners, the Waltons, to publicly commit to addressing issues in their stores, warehouses and supply chains.
“I am worried about how I’m going to pay for groceries this week while Alice Walton has paid off a US$200 million luxury condo in New York City,” said Emily Wells, a Walmart worker in the USA. “The Waltons are at the center of the income inequality problems that are hurting the global economy and all of our families.”
The Waltons family is worth $150 billion and grows that wealth by more than $8 million a day. It would take a Brazilian Walmart worker a total of 30 million years to earn the equivalent of the Walton family’s wealth.
The workers’ message to Walmart and the Waltons is simple: Walmart must publicly commit to pay its 2.2 million workers at its stores and countless more in its supply chain a living wage and treat them with dignity.
In Miami, Florida, an estimated 100 people, including Walmart workers that are members of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart), are gathering outside Walmart’s Latin American headquarters to ask Walmart and its billionaire owners, the Waltons, to publicly commit to pay its workers $15 an hour and provide full-time, consistent hours. They are standing with other Walmart workers around the world in the Global Day for Decent Work at Walmart and will deliver petitions backing their call for $15 per hour and full-time work.
The day also marks the announcement of Walmart’s nomination for the “Lifetime Worst Corporation Award.” Walmart receives this nomination primarily because of its abysmal failure to address adequately the safety concerns of workers in Bangladesh and to compensate the families whose loved ones perished more than 18 months ago in the Rana Plaza building collapse where it is believed that Walmart was sourcing garments during the time of the collapse, said the release.