In This Week’s The Nation: The Great Walmart Walkout

Here’s my feature in the new issue of The Nation:

The morning after Thanksgiving, as many Americans were sleeping or shopping, Walmart workers were striking. In Hanover, Maryland, a handful of strikers were joined by hundreds of supporters for an 8:30 am rally in the cold. Smiling, uniformed, ten-foot-tall cardboard cutouts of employees were emblazoned with the workers’ grievances: poverty wages, miserly benefits, dignity denied. The head of the labor group Jobs With Justice blasted Walmart for abusing workers and pushing public school privatization. Then the crowd marched, two-by-two and 400 strong, through a shopping-center parking lot. When they reached the outer edge of Walmart’s property, police were waiting to block them. “We’re just nervous,” said striker Barbara Elliot. “It’s new, what we’re doing, but we’re tired…We’re doing it for other generations, too.”

Hundreds of Argentina Walmart Employees Went on Strike in Solidarity with US Co-Workers

At The Nation:

About 1,000 Walmart workers in Argentina staged brief strikes last Friday, a union official told The Nation this week.

Rubén Cortina, the president of the Americas division of the global union federation UNI, said workers struck in close to ten regions of Argentina, and “almost half of the stores had some type of strike during the day.” He said those strikes generally lasted between one and three hours, as workers walked off the job to hold demonstrations inside or outside their store during part of their scheduled shift, then returned to work.

Activists Stage ‘Block the Boat’ Protest Against Ship Bearing Walmart Goods From Bangladesh

At The Nation:

Elizabeth, NJ—About sixty activists gathered early this morning outside the Port of Newark to protest the arrival of a ship they said carried Walmart goods from Bangladesh. Hoisting cardboard tombstones spelling out Walmart’s name, and garments emblazoned with the names of workers who died in the New York City Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the crowd declared the retail giant culpable for the deaths of 112 workers in a similar fire last month in Bangladesh. Chants included, “One, two three four, don’t let that boat come ashore! Five, six, seven, eight, don’t touch that shit, don’t move that freight!”

“The supply chain needs to change…” Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN) organizer Martiza Silva-Farrell told the crowd. “This is a start.”

Read it here.

On the Melissa Harris-Perry Show: “Right to Work” and Labor’s Future

I was on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show this morning, with Bob King and Ed Ott, to discuss what “Right to Work” does and why it passed in Michigan. Here’s the video: Part 1Part 2.