Josh Eidelson is in Bentonville, Arkansas covering OUR Walmart's visit to Walmart HQ during its weeklong strike after earlier demonstrators were met with retaliation. Love
this interaction in a Walmart museum between the blue shirts (Walmart employees in town for a Walmart meeting) and the green shirts (OUR Walmart members).
In Chicago, 500 fast food workers from a dozen chains are striking today to protest low wages. (“Like their New York counterparts, the Chicago workers are demanding raises to $15 an hour, and the chance to form a union without intimidation.”)
And around the country, workers in 100 Walmart stores are confronting management today to demand changes to the company’s scheduling system. (“Workers have charged that insufficient and erratic work schedules consign them to poverty, wreak havoc on their personal lives and shortchange customer service.”)
Josh Eidelson has a great piece in Dissent exploring the widespread abuse of guest workers in the U.S. He focuses on the gripping story of workers at a shrimp processing plant in Louisiana where a manager frequently threatened to beat employees with a shovel and the owner said he’d “send armed men to assault their families.” REALLY FUN READING. Josh does such a good job of giving a voice to people who are systematically ignored. (“In interviews with Louisiana guest workers, I heard the word impotencia (powerlessness) again and again.”)
