Hundreds of people gathered at a major Walmart distribution center Monday in Elwood, Illinois, to stand in solidarity with workers who have been on strike since mid-September in response to unsafe working conditions and unfair wages.
“No one should come to work and endure extreme temperatures, inhale dust and chemical residue, and lift thousands of boxes weighing up to 250 lbs with no support. Workers never know how long the work day will be—sometimes its two hours, sometimes its 16 hours. Injuries are common, as is discrimination against women and illegal retaliation against workers who speak up for better treatment,” Warehouse Workers for Justice states on its official website.
The discrimination aspect of this list of grievances includes widespread sexual harassment and intimidation of female warehouse workers, an epidemic largely ignored by the establishment media, even among individuals, such as The New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof, known for focusing on female worker equality and empowerment in other countries.
“When I worked at the Walmart warehouse in Elwood, I was sexually harassed on a regular basis…. I literally got locked inside a trailer because that’s what the men thought I was there for…. I reported it to my supervisor, but he didn’t do anything about it,” said Ulyonda Dickerson, a worker at the Walmart warehouse in Elwood, in a report released by Warehouse Workers for Justice.
“I told the supervisors about it, but they definitely don’t listen. One supervisor I had tried to tell said, ‘I didn’t see that.’ Just because you didn’t see it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” said Samantha Rodriguez, a former Elwood warehouse employee. “When I went to another supervisor about the harassment, he asked me out on a date. I said no, and eventually I got fired.”
In response to Monday’s peaceful protester, riot police from Will County and Elwood were unleashed on the crowd, and witnesses tweeted a series of disturbing photos, including officers in full riot regalia (face shields, clubs and body armor) and what appears to be a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) vehicle.
There was some confusion about the police’s jurisdiction on Twitter with individuals speculating the officers were private police given their “paramilitary” appearance.
Photos from the protest show officers restraining some protesters with zip-ties after police declared the event an “unlawful assembly.” Ultimately, seventeen peaceful protesters were arrested, and activists sang “We Shall Overcome” as they were cuffed and walked to a police transport unit.
Elwood police Chief Fred Hayes said, “Police officers always have to prepare for the worst thing that could possibly happen.”
Among those arrested were Will County Board member Jackie Traynere, the Rev. Craig Purchase of Mount Zion Tabernacle Church in Joliet, the Rev. Raymond Lescher of Sacred Heart Church in Joliet and Charlotte Droogan, lay minister at Universalist Unitarian Church of Joliet, the Southtown Star reports.
Mike Compton, one of the striking warehouse workers who walked off the job, said after working at the warehouse for three months, he was a veteran worker because the turnover is so high. He said everyone quits because “They call us bodies and that’s what we feel like.”
Walmart, famous for union-busting and employee abuse, is heavily subsidized by the state i.e., US taxpayers with many of its employees relying on food stamps and state-run health insurance for survival.
Despite these dire working conditions, Walmart claims the WWJ is out to fulfill a nefarious agenda.
This isn’t really about Walmart at all,” said company spokesman Dan Fogleman. “… The union is focused on fulfilling its own agenda.”
WWJ is a “union-funded, union-backed” organization that wants more union members who pay dues that can be used by union bosses on their political agenda, Fogleman said.
WWJ spokeswoman Leah Fried responded, saying WWJ is 95 percent funded by foundations and donations, and while the union is supporting the group, so are many others.
“It’s so incredible that his response for people not getting paid for heavy, difficult labor is to say it’s just a union-backed thing,” she said. “They feel it’s somehow OK for this to go on in their warehouses.”
The action in Elwood follows a walkout of non-union workers at a large Walmart warehouse near Riverside, California, that recently ended after fifteen days due to a combination of factors, including Walmart saying it would “review contracts and look into third-party monitoring of all contractors” and workers’ family financial problems. In These Times journalist David Moberg credits the Riverside action for inspiring the September 15 walkout by thirty-plus workers at Walmart’s huge Elwood warehouse.
The Illinois workers were angry about poor working conditions and apparent retaliation by their employer, a Walmart contractor, against four workers who filed a lawsuit over subminimum wages.
The lawsuit is the sixth filed by Elwood workers in three years. Three prior suits have resulted in settlement payments to workers. The latest claims that Roadlink Workforce Solutions—one of four subcontractors providing long-term “temporary” workers to Schneider Logistics, which operates the warehouse for Wal-Mart—frequently failed to pay overtime and minimum wage, in violation of federal, state and local laws.
Workers at both Walmart warehouses cite similar complaints: wage theft, harassment, safety hazards, being denied breaks and working in extreme conditions, such as high temperatures with inadequate water.
This “snowballing” of labor actions isn’t limited to Walmart employees, of course, as Steven Ashby noted recently in the Chicago Tribune.
“Teachers go on strike in Chicago and Lake Forest. Chicago symphony musicians walk out. Machinists walk picket lines in Joliet, and Walmart warehouse workers stop working in Elwood. Governor Pat Quinn gets chased from the state fair by angry government workers, and talk of a state workers strike is rumbling,” Ashby wrote.
Historical change is often best understood by looking at turning points — key moments when history began to dramatically change. Three citywide labor strikes in 1934 ended a period of relative passivity and heralded the country’s largest and most successful worker uprising. The 1955 Montgomery bus boycott initiated the nation-changing civil rights movement.
So are Wisconsin, Occupy and the CTU strike another turning point that future historians will see as the beginning of a new mass workers’ movement demanding social change?
If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on it.
"Walmart Workers Ask For Safe Work Environment, Walmart Calls Riot Police; A Monday afternoon protest in Illinois gets heated. Workers at Walmart contractor Roadlink have been on strike since Sept. 15" by Jessica Testa [http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/walmart-workers-strike-for-safe-warehouse-conditio]:
About 650 people protested a major Walmart distribution center Monday in Elwood, Illinois, the Chicago Tribute reports [http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-walmart-employeesbre8901b1-20121001,0,1608484.story].
At Walmart contractor Roadlink, workers have been on strike since mid-September, claiming unsafe working conditions and unfair wages. From the movement's website [http://warehouseworker.org/]: "No one should come to work and endure extreme temperatures, inhale dust and chemical residue, and lift thousands of boxes weighing up to 250lbs with no support. Workers never know how long the work day will be- sometimes its two hours, sometimes its 16 hours. Injuries are common, as is discrimination against women and illegal retaliation against workers who speak up for better treatment."
Reports from the protest vary, but photos show riot police restraining some protesters with zip-ties. The rally had apparently been declared an "unlawful assembly." Pat Barcas of Fox Valley Labor News reports that 17 people were arrested.
Photo by @daneyvilla. Via: instagram.com
Source: Pat Barcas, Fox Valley Labor News / via: pbarcas
Photo by @daneyvilla. Via: instagram.com
Source: Pat Barcas, Fox Valley Labor News / via: pbarcas
Via: @WarehouseWorker
Photo by @daneyvilla. Via: instagram.com
Photo by @daneyvilla. Via: instagram.com
Robert Snodgrass writes:
Hello, I have been trying forever to get some help with this matter, but nobody seems to care at all. There is a very serious problem of fear of reporting unfair labor practice in Walmart. I worked there for almost 10-years with an excellent work history, up until we got a new store manager who was extremely verbally abusive to employees including a mentally handicapped female who he would bash until she was hysterically crying. You could hear her wailing across the store, and when I suggested to employees that we report it they said they were afraid they would be fired. I said we have rights and laws in this country and we do not need to be afraid to report abuse, especially of the handicapped. They said I was naive, and that everyone knows Walmart controls the government and everything with its money and lawyers and prides themselves on being able to get away with doing anything they want, I had more faith and trust in our system than that. I told myself from the begining, do the right thing, tell the truth, follow the rules, and trust God, and I began reporting the abuse to upper management. Before you know it the abusive manager started letting me know he was angry with my reporting him and fired me. That was just the begining of the mess. I went to the NLRB and they filed a charge on walmart for firing me for engaging in protected activity.
Walmart then forced me to drop the charge before they would reinstate my job, and then harshly retaliated on me in many ways including false write ups and 2 more wrongful terminations shortly after I returned. When I went back to the NLRB as they had told me to do should this occur, Walmart gave perjurious testimony to the NLRB and told numerous extremely slanderous and defamatory lies in order to have the case dismissed. I have struggled very hard through 2 dismissals before obtaining my NLRB files through FOIA and managing to prove so many lies that walmart had told the NLRB, that I believe that is why The Deputy General Counsel finally told me to re-file my case. It is now back open, but not going well. Despite the sheer obviousness of Walmart's gross ILLEGAL retaliation against me, along with eyewitness statements, including a police report and absolutely solid documented proof of Walmarts deliberate obfuscation and outright lying to the NLRB all the way through the investigation, the Regional NLRB has somehow inconceivably again dismissed my case. It is now back under appeal to the NLRB General Counsel in Washington, DC again.
Walmart has gone to great lengths, by doing things like what they did to me, in order to instill an atmosphere of fear of reporting in the employees. Everything is not fine at all in Walmart, in fact nobody has any idea how bad it really is because walmart has carefully ensured that the employees are so afraid to report wrongdoing that they won't even say anything when they hear a mentally handicapped female hysterically wailing across the store and hiding in the break room from the ongoing extreme verbal abuse of the store manager, and when the one guy naive enough to say something speaks up, he is promptly fired and subjected to many forms of retaliation up to and including false terminations and having his name defamed and slandered to the NLRB. I could go on and write a book about everything that I alone have been through, not to mention what others have been through with this evil tactic used by walmart to keep their employees quiet about the truth of what really goes on in those stores on a daily basis, but it seems nobody would probably even care. Meanwhile I have lost my job, my career of nearly 10-years, and probably any chance at ever retiring in my lifetime all because I reported employee abuse including of a mentally handicapped female by a store manager in our walmart store. Robert Snodgrass, 715 Taylor rd., Downingtown, Pa 19335, snod307@hotmail.com 484-252-9596 Thank You. God Bless you, and God Bless America.
2012-09-25 "Caught! Revealing Walmart-warehouse Document Found on Shop Floor" message from "Warehouse Workers United":
Walmart can afford the best-paid public relations team, but spin doesn’t make a difference when it’s immediately contradicted by a leaked document.
Warehouse workers have raised serious concerns about broken equipment and high injury rates in the warehouse where we work moving Walmart merchandise. But when we’ve asked for working equipment, we have been retaliated against.
Walmart spokesperson Dan Fogelman said “workers' claims were ‘either unfounded, or if they are legitimate, have been addressed.’” (Los Angeles Times, Sep. 17)
But a management document from inside the warehouse tells a different story. A worker found a company checklist with Walmart’s logo on it that shows a lot of equipment is broken and even dangerous. The document is dated Aug. 8, but workers report that problems noted in the document still have not been fixed. (You can view the document here. [http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/caught-secret-walmart-warehouse-document-revealed])
This document proves Walmart and NFI know what the problems are, yet none of these serious hazards have been addressed.
Last week we delivered more than 120,000 signatures – including yours – to Walmart in five cities. The next day, warehouse worker Javier Rodriguez cornered Walmart executive Rajan Kamalanathan, who heads the company's ethical outsourcing initiative, at a private event in Washington, D.C. In Illinois workers at a Walmart distribution center joined us on strike to end retaliation.
2012-09-25 "Caught! Secret WalMart-warehouse document revealed" from "Warehouse Workers United"
[http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/caught-secret-walmart-warehouse-document-revealed/]:
A worker found a company checklist with Walmart’s logo on it that shows a lot of equipment is broken and even dangerous. The document is dated Aug. 8, but workers report that problems noted in the document still have not been fixed.
Here’s what Walmart spokesperson Dan Fogelman had to say: “Workers’ claims were ‘either unfounded, or if they are legitimate, have been addressed.’” (Los Angeles Times, Sep. 17)
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