By Debbie Forward

Black Friday Walmart Actions in the San Diego Area

Grossmont 11am– 8820 Grossmont Blvd, La Mesa
Aero 10am– 3382 Murphy Canyon Rd, SD
Logan 10am– 2121 Imperial Ave, SD

If you’re one of the humans who believe holidays are for friends and families, nobody should be forced to work on Thanksgiving Day, and you steer away from the shopping masses on Black Friday, well, here’s something worthy of your consideration.

Thousands of people like you are signing up to join peaceful demonstrations at hundreds of Walmarts across the country to support the stores’ employees in their quest for decent working conditions. Some of those rallies are already planned in San Diego County. Even in North County. Gasp.

Previous attempts to share a message of fair working conditions with the Walton family, the owners of the Walmart chain, have failed. So BlackFridayProtests.org is organizing concerned Americans for November 28th rallies to highlight Walmart employees’ challenges. Most workers at the stores are paid less than $25,000 annually, which is not enough for families to cover basic bills. At the same time, managers manipulate schedules to keep people from working full-time, making them ineligible for benefits and creating stressful working and living conditions. Protesters and petitioners are asking for $15/hr and consistent, full-time work.

While this labor force struggles for the essentials, our country’s wealthiest family, the Waltons, enjoys a net worth of more than $145 billion. That’s more wealth than 42% of American families combined. The Walmart chain profits $16 billion a year, and the family (shall we call them The Family?) earns $8.6 million a day in dividend earnings alone. We’re talkin’ ground zero for income inequality and destroying the middle class.

BlackFridayProtests.org pretty much offers a “Protest in a Box”; anyone can create a Black Friday Walmart action, and anyone can join one already organized. Tod Critchlow, the co-chair of the North County Labor Alliance – a group of labor leaders who has created one such action at a Vista Walmart – explained, “We are compelled to support Walmart workers because their employer’s low-paying model and gross inequity is immoral and holding our country back. America is at its best when companies and businesses reinvest in the workers who build them. This current model can’t support itself – anyone who has played with a set of blocks can tell you that when something grows bigger and bigger at the top, it topples over. Before that disaster happens, we need to show Walmart how it can be a leader in building our country’s middle class by supporting hard-working people.”

If your focus this Thanksgiving is gratitude, rather than over-hyped shopping at merchants destroying the working class, be thankful you can freely express your civic concerns and check out BlackFridayProtests.org.

******************

Debbie Forward is Communications Director and Organizer for Palomar Faculty Federation, AFT Local 6161