Strikes at Walmart Warehouses Expose Threats in Supply Chain
Labor Notes
Jane Slaughter
A strike at Walmart? Two of them. In a time when few union members dare strike, three dozen Southern California workers who move goods for Walmart were desperate enough to walk off their jobs September 12 even without union protection.
Three days later, 30 workers who’d been organizing with Warehouse Workers for Justice in Elwood, Illinois, southwest of Chicago, walked out, too.
Both groups of workers had taken legal action against their employers, contractors who move goods for Walmart, and their strikes were protesting illegal retaliation.
California strikers asked the NLRB to investigate a half dozen unfair labor practices: retaliation against and surveillance of those who’ve been organizing with the energetic Warehouse Workers United (WWU) worker center, an affiliate of the Change to Win federation, for better conditions.
Striker David Garcia said, “For a whole week they were making me lift bicycles all day every day just to see if I would quit or give up.” Wearing a WWU T-shirt could mean being sent home early, Garcia said.