So says CNN. Apparently the strike is attempting vertical integration. It's worth noting that Walmart is now doing Black Thursday as the main event (prior to this) in order to make sure that retail continues to be an arms race to who can ruin the most holidays for the most employees. So this is sort of their mouthpiece/donation thing, which offers some more details. I guess Blackwater can stand in for the Pinkertons, or Walmart can just offer gift certificates to the ravening hordes of customers for each striker scalp.
Good turn of phrase here. I have friends who worked at Toys r Us in high school -- they still share thxgiving and xmas horror stories. Hopefully Walmart workers win some rights. Also, why Black Friday is a thing is something I will never understand. It really does baffle me.
There have been some aggressive unionization attempts regarding Walmart, but it will be interesting to see just how well this pans out. Obviously Walmart is aware of it at this point.
Thanksgiving is the best time for huge families that haven't seen eachother in years to get together and go shopping. You just can't do that on Christmas day, with so many good movies opening on Dec 25th in recent years. In my house we all gather around the computer and refresh Steam sales all day.
Just like the Waltons, the "John-boy" version.... It used to be so nice on holidays, when everything was closed.
Not when your mom makes you drive all around creation on Easter morning to find someplace willing to sell you the hyacinths she's demanded on penalty of excommunication. Black Friday/Thursday(/Wednesday?) is increasingly stupid, though.
Black Thursday? You mean Thanksgiving? Good on them. While it doesn't approach the situation where a lot of these people are in where they really need their Wal-Mart jobs, it reminds me of my first job sacking groceries. I told the manager way ahead of time that I wouldn't be available on Thanksgiving, but when I looked at my schedule for that week it had me working all day on the holiday. I mentioned to the manager that I'm not available then and he should revise the schedule, but he was just like "Nope, nope." So I said I would work the rest of the week, but I'm not coming in Thursday. I expected to be fired on the spot, but I could have easily found another lousy, part-time job in the area. Surprisingly, he changed the schedule.
Good for you. I hate those small people who push around their employees just because they think they can. People should stand up for themselves. My brother once worked at a dessert store where the owner threatened to break his arm because he knocked over some cups. Unsurprisingly he quit very shortly after that despite not having a job lined up, and today he owns that dessert store. True story.
There are plenty of businesses that are open on Thanksgiving, not just retail. My dad worked Thanksgiving most years when I was growing up, the double time and a half (or whatever it was he got paid extra) came in handy.
Yeah when I used to work a job that actually paid me extra to work on holidays I loved doing it. It was a tech support job that was guaranteed to be dead on those days anyway, and getting my not great wage multiplied into something halfway (or sometimes even all the way) decent was pretty nice.
When I worked at WalMart, like 15 years ago, when you were on the opening shift everyone had to gather together and do the WalMart cheer. Also you had to watch "training" videos that taught you things like how stealing merch affects us all by lowering our paycheck, and unions just want your money and actually hate you and your family. Somehow I got away with not doing all these things. I just told the manager, "I'm not doing that." I think the reason I could excuse myself without getting fired was that I could read and do math in my head.
"Black Thursday?" Speaking as someone who doesn't have a holiday then, that is some sad shit. Also, my hat is off to the organizing employees.
While I support these workers in principle, I will still be sending a proxy shopper to Wal-Mart on Thanksgiving. I mean come on: they have Most Wanted for $25 and Forza Horizon for $15.
I feel bad for the people who will be going in to work on Thanksgiving, having to deal with a much greater proportion of customers than they would if they had a full crew. Hopefully an even number of strikers are with security as with retail, and as such the problem will solve itself as a proportionally greater number of people stomp one another to death before getting in.
Clearly the answer is to make sure to deregulate labor relations. Can't have unions brainwashing their poor helpless members now, can we?
Walmart doesn't close so there is no rush anymore - people just line up for what they want as they arrive. And its not clear that this is an actual strike, meaning it may just be protesters and not actual scheduled employees. Not to mention that it will likely vary a lot by store.
So - the St-Hyacinthe Walmart is still unionized I guess? I'd shop there, in spite of my feelings for the company, if only because unions for shit jobs are rare enough across that (and pretty much all other) industries. But some time last year there was a decertification push ostensibly supported by the employees there - couldn't find what'd become of it, but news stories this year talked about the store as still being unionized, so I guess it didn't go ahead.
