A picture Wal Mart wishes was not on the net.

[Whovian]

From the Occupy Tampa page

[Zalatix]

1. Woah, when was that?

[Whovian]

3. Last Wednesday.

At Wednesdays’ General Assembly members of Occupy Tampa, concerned citizens and Local Wal-Mart Associates met with Representatives from OUR Wal-Mart. We heard heartbreaking stories of people from all across the nation and even the world about the daily struggles that workers face under the ever tightening squeeze of Wal-Mart’s labor practices while simultaneously reaping record profits in the billions of dollars. Wal-Mart’s overwhelming labor monopoly allows them to set the standard for labor practices far beyond their corporation.According to a report by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the low wages paid to Walmart employees drives down the salaries in other local retail outlets by as much as 5 percent. Although the opening of a Walmart in a community creates jobs, the small paychecks all but ensure the workers remain in poverty. Walmart’s ridiculously low wages and deliberate underemployment keep their workers just rich enough to not be living in a dumpster co-op, but poor enough to be eligible for food stamps. Seeing as Walmart is the reason why countless Americans go on Food Stamps in the first place, one could say this is a low-cost orgy of irony. That’s right–Walmart pays its employees dirt, reaps enormous profits, forces its employees to enrollin social programs like food stamps, and then profits even further as its employees and all the other Americans still recovering from the economic abortion caused by the Walmarts of the world spend their food stamps.

OUR Wal-Mart is planning a national day of action for Black Friday. ------ One of the best ways we can offer our support locally is to simply inform and direct as many Wal-Mart associates as we can reach to the OUR Wal-Mart website http://forrespect.org/ and allow them to contact representatives that can offer them support and help to build a local network of supporters… This can be done through a variety of channels from direct conversation to flyer drops throughout your local stores or any way that we can reach out to associates of Wal-Mart to let them know that there is a support network available to them.

[Zalatix]

5. My in-laws can't find much about the Wal Mart strikes. I'd love to show them links and stuff

about that march.

[Whovian]

7. Google walmart strike.

https://www.google.com/search?q=walmart+strike&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&client=firefox-a

[Cha]

2. Something I never thought I'd see

after boycotting walmart for so long.

Thanks Whovian

[leveymg]

4. knr

[sarchasm]

6. KnR !!!

[Swagman]

8. wow!!

[DLevine]

9. Huge K&R. nt

[TahitiNut]

10. Wal-Mart is the leading edge of the "evil empire"

As long as Wal-Mart and companies like them can increase the wealth of the Ruling Class at the expense of working people, exploiting the human beings who toil to provide for themselves and their families, we will continue to deteriorate as a nation and world. It is absolutely intolerable ... a crime against humanity.

The corruption and control of Ameirika's Ruling Class is make VERY clear. A gathering of 1/10th as many people on the astro-turf of the "Tea Party" is publicized by the MSM from coast to coast. But THIS march receives almost NO mention whatsoever!!

[Octafish]

20. Jackson Stephens of BCCI fame also brought Waltons great fortune...

From the great DUer mod mom:

There has always been something incongruous about Stephens Inc. Despite the Little rock firm's attempts to portray itself as a small- city operation that closes for the duck season and got fabulously lucky on a couple of down-home deals like Wal-Mart, it was, at the incinerator's inception, the ninth-largest investment bank in the country. Since it is not headquartered in New York, its dealings are local news, little noticed by the national press, even when they have national implications. And, as a source close to the company once remarked, "The farther you get from Arkansas, the better it looks."

Stephens Inc. was founded by Witt Stephens, a state legislator's son who parlayed a Depression-era belt-buckle, Bible, and municipal-bond business into an immense personal fortune. After his retirement in 1973, the company was run by his shy younger brother, Jackson (a classmate of Jimmy Carter's at the Naval Academy). Witt Stephens and Stephens Inc. did much to create the economic paradox that is modern Arkansas: a desperately poor state with a scant 2.3 million inhabitants that is nonetheless home to a number of wealthy companies. Without the financial assistance of the Stephens brothers, Sam Walton might have ended his days as the most innovative merchant in Bentonville. Stephens money was also important to the fortunes of enterprises as various as Tyson Foods and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the television producer and reigning First Friend. Stephens Inc. is an important client of the Rose law firm, whose chairman, C. Joseph Giroir, made Hillary Rodham Clinton a partner. And back in 1977, Stephens assisted BCCI's infiltration of the American banking system by brokering the latter's purchase of National Bank of Georgia stock held by Bert Lance, former President Jimmy Carter's friend and disgraced budget director.

Jackson Stephens (who turned over the reins to his son, Warren, in the late eighties) and his firm were both substantial contributors to the campaigns of Presidents Reagan and Bush (to the tune of at least $100,000 in 1980 and 1989), but they have been closer still to Bill Clinton (whom Witt Stephens had been known to call "that boy&quot .

On two occasions, once when Clinton was running for reelection in Arkansas in 1990 and again in March 1992, when his battered presidential campaign was broke, the Stephens family saved Clinton's bacon with an infusion of money. Indeed, it may not be too much to say that their Worthen Bank's emergency $3.5 million line of credit saved the presidential campaign from extinction. --L.J.D.

-snip

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1993/11/davis.html

Amerika's ruling class is all-powerful and all-corrupt. Thank you for putting it into words, Tahiti Nut.

[Berlum]

11. Wow. Corporate media (R) did a great job of ignoring this

They are adroit at skipping over "inconvenient" news...

[reformist2]

19. +1,000,000. A Wal-Mart strike is an obvious lead story.

[aandegoons]

12. Good people are starting to wake up.

Hope this gets air time.

[glowing]

13. This was in protest to a Walmart grocery opening

up in the carrolwood area. They have every damned box store within spitting distance of everyone. They just don't want the "Walmart" in their "area".

Walmart came in and tried to tell the council it was only one of their Fresh Marts. One of their so called "green markets". They want the $ from the wealthier who tend to have some money and are cautious about what they buy and put in their bodies. It's not like they don't have Publix and Sweetbay and the Citrus Park Mall on their doorstep... Plus bed bath and beyond... And a few other types of these stores. They probably are only 5-10 miles from a Target or a super Walmart any way.

I'm glad they took a stand, but it was more about property values, traffic, and the "people" who would come into "their" little wealthy suburb area for a Walmart, than it is about jobs or wages. I drive thru this area all the time. This is an area where I actually see the Romney stickers on SUV's and "women for Romney" stickers proudly displayed. (These are the obe's I was talking about in another thread about white married women who "married" the right life for a certain lifestyle).

But whatever works to bring the news to the forefront and bring groups together for a common purpose against Walmart is fine by me!

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Yesterday, I was party to a conversation where my friend proudly announced that

her son went to Walmart for the first time. (He was visiting Virginia from NYC.) You'd think it was his first trip to Disneyland as a kid! He drank the consumer Walmart Koolaid, the whole pitcher.

[Iggy]

15. I'm Former UAW, and I Get It, But...

isn't it a bit late for this?

How many of these folks initially thought the new local Wal-Fart was a GOOD thing? how many started
shopping at their local Wal-Mart after it opened; due to the convenience and the low prices on things they typically shop for?

did these folks not know that shopping at Wal-Mart, instead of the local mom and pop convenience/drug store--
where they used to shop regularly, would put the mom and pop stores out of business?

????

again, failing to learn from history means we have to repeat it.

it appears many in our nation don't understand monopoly capitalism-- and the fact this ultimately means higher prices for
everything we need to survive.

[MadHound]

16. Better late than never, don't you think? n/t

[Iggy]

17. Uh, No

I don't agree.

Wal-Mart is not going away-- although they were basically run out of Germany.. closed up shop and totally left
there not long ago.

as author Tom Wolfe pointed out "you can't go home again".

the mom and pop shops, some with great diners/ice cream parlors-- are not coming back.

some of us understood this was Wal-Fart's plan all along. too bad so many people didn't see it coming

[MadHound]

21. So what do you propose?

Just keep on having Wal Mart workers roll over for the corporation, don't protest, don't unionize? Just keep on keeping on because by Gawd, they missed their perfect window years and decades ago according to some anonymous internet poster?

You may not be able to go home again, but you can certainly improve the place where you're at now, which is what these people are doing. As a former union member one would think you would get this, but I guess not.

Things do change, the worm does turn, and what was true yesterday and today is certainly not the truth for tomorrow. Those changes are brought about by humans, people who are fed up with what is the current norm. Perhaps this nascent movement will succeed, perhaps it won't, but it is certainly worth trying, given the alternative.

[Iggy]

23. There's this thing called: Collaboration....

Prove me wrong.

I just stated mom and pop drug/convenience stores are never coming back. you're OK with that?

Here's what I propose: that 50 of the protestors pool their money, form a corporation, and open a new
drug/convenience store near the Wal-Fart they are protesting.

Insist on providing fast, professional service to their customers, and insist on paying their workers
$2.00 an hour more than Wal-Fart.

Once this store is open, use it as collateral to open the next one.

Impossible?? that's probably what detractors initially said regarding Wal-Mart.

[iamthebandfanman]

28. Ummm

youre just coming off as a complainer.

you said there will never ever be any more mom and pop stores
then you suggest 50 people on walmart wages come together to make a mom and pop store ?
i guess its not mom and pop to you because its 50 people? because they have plans to buy another location?

beyond that contradiction(atleast what i see as one),
you honestly think 50 walmart workers have the bulk buying power to beat out walmart on prices?

you honestly see nothing different about the economic and business climate walmart started in to the one in existence today?

if a solution were that simple, it would have already been done.. infact im pretty sure groups of people ("collaboration&quot have attempted to start businesses since walmart ... dont see how that ensures success against a company with long established connections.

you can whine about 'where were these people' all you want.. but that doesnt change anything

[Tigress DEM]

29. I like your thinking if it was an AND not an "instead of" proposition.

Wal-Mart HAS responded to pressure in the past, but they go back to their old ways. IF we keep the pressure up, then we can get them to be good stewards in their neighborhoods whether they like it or not. Where Wal-Marts stand, make them be good citizens.

It's possible with neighborhoods getting larger that the Mom & Pop convenience stores won't be able to maintain with or without Wal-Mart. I'd like to see new neighborhoods KEEP Wal-Mart OUT and by design make the local stores within walking distance and find ways to make their prices competitive, have more bike paths and keep cars on the outer streets. I think we have to plan the types of neighborhoods where the local markets and stores can thrive vs trying to compete in this slanted situation.

[MadHound]

30. Not a business person, are you.

The major reason that Wal Mart is doing so well is because they perfected the business technique of vertical integration. What this means is that they control the manufacture, distribution, transportation and final sale of each and every product. This strategy allows them to not only cut costs, but demand, and receive, concessions from suppliers. This is what drives the profits for Wal Mart, this is what has allowed them to make billions. If you come in with a single shop providing all the goods and services that Wal Mart does, you are going to get eaten alive. Your hypothetical single business simply doesn't have the economic clout to get the cheapest wholesale prices out of suppliers, transporters, etc. Your costs, even on a per store basis, will be much greater than Wal Mart's costs. Add your two dollar an hour pay increase, and your costs will go through the roof. You simply won't be able to keep your prices low enough to compete and you will go out of business. You would be eaten up by Wal Mart, which would simply burp and go on.

If you want to get the best deal for Wal Mart workers, organizing and unionizing each and every Wal Mart. That's is also Wal Mart's greatest fear. They have spent billions to keep out the unions, but that defense, as we see in the OP, is starting to crack. You unionize Wal Mart, and not only is it a great benefit for workers, but it also makes mom and pops more competitive.

Wal Mart is not going away anytime soon. I suspect that at some point, they will collapse under their own weight like so many mega corporations before them. But that could be a long time away, so you've got to deal with them in the most effective manner you can now. Unionization is the best way to do that.

I'm not against mom and pop businesses, at one time I owned one myself. But I also recognize business reality, and Wal Mart isn't going to be forced out by mom and pop competition. The only way to deal with them is organizing, unionizing, and getting the public on your side. That will do much more long term good than offering up sacrificial mom and pops for their consumption.

[Sherman A1]

41. Eloquently & effectively stated

You hit the nail on the head. Recently in my community Wal Mart came before out City Council wanting to open a store & wanting a couple of forms of tax support or relief. The Council Meeting was filled with people speaking against Wal Mart and supporting them with TIF's and alike. The Council voted 9-0 on two different measures for Wal Mart saying NO to support. They did vote to approve their store, but Wal Mart will be paying for it on their own and will be adhering to zoning, building and noise ordinances (and this City is somewhat noted for enforcing building ordinances). Now with the current labor actions as Wal Mart across the county it is possible that we will see an increase in their workers wages, benefits & improved working conditions that will help to level the playing field for other Retailers in direct and indirect competition with them.

I don't think Wal Mart going away is the best solution. Wal Mart improving itself internally to respect it's workforce and provide decent livable wages & conditions is I believe the best path.

[Iggy]

42. That's not the original question posed by the Poster

the person asked "what I proposed" as a solution to Wal-Mart's dominance.

I gave a credible solution-- one that has in fact been used numerous times in our nation- tho' not
necessarily against wal-mart (yet).

I work in the retail business, so I undertstand perfectly well WHY wal-mart is so successful. so what?
so was K-Mart, until wal-mart came along.

my point again is collaboration-- a concept lost on many in bloggo world and elsewhere.

GM and Ford used to think they were hot S**t, too, until the Japanese car manufacturers came along.
large American companies have a track record of getting too big and getting too arrogant.

I contend some person(s) with the right idea and some funding can in fact compete against wal-mart.
will it be easy? of course not. but to imply wal-mart is "invincible" or unbeatable-- I don't believe so.

[reusrename]

50. the fist step will be to stop blaming the victims

The folks who are being taken advantage of are not the problem.

[grantcart]

32. we shop at a lot of mom and pop convenience stores

You will find tens of thousands of them under the 99 cent brand.

Some are family owned businesses that have lots of branches and others have one location.

We love them and we go in to everyone we can find and buy as much as we can from them and have a chat with the owners, many of who are Vietnamese and who were resettled under the program that I was involved in.

BTW both my grandfathers had hardware stores. There are almost no mom and pop hardware stores or drug stores either and that has nothing to do with Walmart.

The hyper concentration of capital was predicted a long time ago and is bigger than any one store, even Walmart.

But I am in agreement with your desire to promote mom and pops, or co ops.

[underthematrix]

44. This is a great idea and this

is what we should be tweeting about. I'm looking for an Amerucan only cell company. I want to get rid of Sprint. I got rid of my cable but I would love to find a nonglobal Internet service provider.

[Javaman]

33. You say, "learn from history".

Okay, so the millions of union protestors over the last 120+ years who protests against the coal, steel, rail, auto and other industries who were monopolies were just spitting into the wind?

Read up on the 1909 Cherry mine disaster, read up on the union strikes in the 1890's read up on the countless strikes by union workers and potential union workers who broke the back of the industrial monopolies, then get back to me when you learn from history.

Union history has a bloody and violent history mostly perpetrated by the corporations.

And what you suggest is rather than protesting against monopolies, the people protesting should just form their own corporation. So on other words, if you can't beat them join them?

Full disclosure was a member of the local 600 cameraman's union.

[HiPointDem]

38. lol.

[99Forever]

31. If only...

... those protesting people were sitting on their self-righteous asses making judgmental, anonymous postings about being helpless to do anything, instead of actually doing something, it would fix things, right "Iggy?"

[Glimmer of Hope]

18. Wow!

[Honeycombe8]

22. Is the strike still going on? nt

[Whovian]

25. I really don't know but hope so.

[lunatica]

24. That photo gives hope

[LongTomH]

26. Is there a Facebook link for this picture?

I'd love to share it!

[BlueStreak]

27. The relationship with poverty is BOTH cause and effect

It is cause because Wal*Mart has put so many other retailers out of business, leaving people to have nothing but minimum wage jobs. It is the cause of poverty because, far from the Wal*Mart of the 1980s that championed "Made in America", the modern Wal*Mart sells virtually nothing made in America other than perhaps a few paper products.

But it is also effect. Wal*Mart is not the only force that has driven Americans into poverty or near poverty. And when you are looking at your last 20 dollars, you have to buy the cheapest stuff you can get by with. The only principle that matters at that point is staying alive and keeping the family together. So people go to Wal*Mart because the have to.

it is the ultimate truly vicious cycle.

[underthematrix]

45. Yep. there are

two reasons I stopped shopping at Walmart - employee abuse and most products are made somewhere other than America. Anyone who voting Repub is a fool.

[ceile]

34. Every Walmart shopper should be forced to watch "Walmart the High Cost of Low Price"

I've watched it twice in the past few months. Came out in 2005, but from what I understand little seems to have changed. Employees are given applications for State services when they are hired because Walmart knows damn well they cannot make ends meet on their salary alone. There is a stat on how much Walmart employees cost the American tax payer- I can't remember the exact cost but it was in the billions. It also goes into discrimination against women and minorities, slave labor in China, Latin America and East Asia, crime on Walmart property (parking lot cameras are to detect union activity, not prevent crime) and much more. I highly recommend it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart:_The_High_Cost_of_Low_Price

[progressoid]

35. YES! Here's the whole movie:

[warrprayer]

36. hey Wal Mart

Fuck you!

[LittleGirl]

37. thank you

shared on facebook

[1-Old-Man]

39. Walton family: You don't make enough money importing cheap junk, you have to screw employees too?

FerChristsakes, you sell shit for a dollar that cost you pennies, do you really have to treat your employees like they were expendable trash too?

[valerief]

40. Wow, what a great picture! nt

[underthematrix]

43. The big question is wny are we still shopping at WALMART?

Why don't you start shopping at employees-owned food stores like WINCO! When you buy WALMART, you buy China. Instead of buying new clothes try shopping at the Goodwill (great place to find designer labels) or Salvation Army? Try buying used furniture at thirftshops or at made in America outlets with a union shop. Seriously, the only way change is gonna come is to put our money where our mouths are.

[HiPointDem]

46. heard the same song in the 1990s. the only change that came is walmart is even bigger.

'we' aren't shopping at walmart, but lots of people are.

'vote with your consumer dollar' = fail.

[Lifelong Protester]

47. "Vote with your consumer dollar" may seem a 'fail' IF

one expects that his or her measily spending (in my case, a family of 2) will make any difference to a big Megalomart like Wal-Mart.

But I do not have any illusions about my refusal to shop there being a part of some big plan to bring down Wal-Mart.

I do not shop there because I will not spend my dollars to support their policies of treating workers, here and abroad, so shabbily.

I do not shop there, because I do not NEED another $4 tee-shirt, made at the expense of some child in Pakistan not being in school

I do not shop there because I personally do not want to be a part of their 'evil empire', built on greed, strong-arm tactics with suppliers, anti-union and anti-worker stance.

I do not shop there because I am not interested in supporting with my scant dollars, the Walton heirs, especially the one who built the art museum shrine to herself.

I do not shop there because I do not like that they have put a lot of mom and pop businesses OUT of business, then leave a lot of unattended real-estate blotting the landscape.

And yes, frankly, that is leaving me with fewer and fewer choices of things to buy. I try to keep it to just what I need. I try very hard to buy American, and buy locally made.

There are many reasons not to shop at Wal-Mart without assuming that anyone who does not shop there harbors some illusion that voting with their consumer dollar is going to bring them down.

[HiPointDem]

48. i don't shop there for the same reasons. under no illusion that unorganized individual consumer

actions will have any effect whatsoever.

the PTB have been selling 'vote with your dollar' since the 60s. it's pretty much useless, politically, and that's why they like it.

[Lifelong Protester]

49. You are certainly right about 'vote with your dollars' against Wal-Mart

very few of us, even the ones who know of the reasons I stated, refrain from shopping there. Me? I've never been in one, and always say I'd do without first.

[TBF]

51. I rarely shop there anyway and never knowlingly cross a picket line.

So as far as I'm concerned they don't exist. Solidarity to the strikers.