Just before Black Friday, Walmart has turned up the heat on the Maryland wing of the national campaign seeking to reform the world’s biggest employer. In spite of a court ruling threatening special penalties for trespassing at Maryland Walmart stores, organizers appear not to be backing down in their plans to picket at least two Walmart stores in the Metro DC region with banners and signs Friday. They will join as many as 1,500 other protests and strikes at Walmarts around the country.
UPDATE BELOW ON METRO DC AREA BLACK FRIDAY PROTESTS
On Monday, an Anne Arundel County Circuit judge granted Walmart a preliminary injunction barring members of OUR Walmart (Organization United for Respect at Walmart), its backer United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), and Jobs with Justice from trespassing on store property. The next day, the judge further upheld the injunction and added a twist: the groups heading up the anti-Walmart campaign have to post a $10,000 bond forfeited “for the payment of any damage” if they don’t obey the order.
The injunction against trespassing is in place until the lawsuit can be heard on the merits.
But the injunction, temporary or not, is exactly what Walmart sought–to keep pesky activists off its property on the biggest shopping day of the year. They’ve also gotten OUR Walmart and UFCW members banned from their stores and property in Arkansas and Florida, and barred from entering stores in California. Walmart views it as protecting their customers from a nuisance. Given the aggressive tactics it has taken in court, however, Walmart may be more concerned about protecting its bottom line.
The court ruling may not be enough of a deterrent to keep Walmart zones protest-free. OUR Walmart, UFCW Local 400, DC Jobs with Justice and other groups refuse to blink, and their plans so far have not changed. Mike Wilson of Respect DC wrote in an email to activists, “We want to make sure that Walmart understands that neither its workers’ [sic] nor the communities they are a part of will be intimidated by such retaliations.”
After a protest at its Landover Hills store on September 5 (video here), Walmart filed suit requesting a permanent injunction “from trespass and nuisance.” Two hundred people converged on the Landover store as part of a national day of action against Walmart. Six were arrested, including three Walmart workers.
In the lawsuit, Walmart specifically sought to bar protests on Black Friday. According to a judge’s note in court records, “[T]he pleadings indicate that the Injuction is sought to prevent individuals from entering on to plaintiffs property, including the day after Thanksgiving 2013.”
Major protests and strikes at stores around the country are happening mostly under the banner of the OUR Walmart campaign. While it’s backed by union UFCW, it doesn’t seek to unionize workers but to draw attention to bad pay, poor working conditions, and retaliation for speaking out.
As the campaign has taken hold, Walmart’s reputation for low, low prices is being replaced with one for low, low wages. So low, in fact, that its employees need food stamps and other government assistance to survive. One store in Canton, Ohio is now infamous for running a food drive for its own workers so they could have a decent holiday meal.
Walmart may be stingy with workers, but not with its chief exec. Recently displaced Walmart CEO Doug McMillion will receive $1.1 million for training his successor and sitting on the board for a year. As many as 825,000 Walmart workers are paid less than $25,000 a year.
Walmart made itself an even bigger target this year by opening stores for Black Friday on Thursday at 6pm, carving into their employees’ holiday. As it stands, over 1 million Walmart workers will be stocking shelves on Thanksgiving day and otherwise preparing for Black Friday .
All the negative attention may be making Walmart execs bite their nails, but that doesn’t mean that the corporate HQ isn’t biting back with lawsuits, intimidation and shadowy smear campaigns. In some ways though it may be on the run. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) just decided to prosecute Walmart widespread labor violations culled from complaints by current and former employees.
UPDATE: Hundreds of people met at UFCW offices in DC early Friday morning. Organizers from OURWalmart, RESPECT DC, DC Jobs With Justice and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 opted not to violate the injunction on trespassing at Maryland Walmart stores. Instead five busloads of protestors headed to a Walmart on Richmond Highway in Alexandria, Virginia. There were several police cars already there when protestors arrived. Nine people were arrested blocking the intersection in front of the store. Full story.
UPDATE: UCFW supported striking workers at three Maryland Walmart stores on Tuesday, November 27. Protestors unaffiliated with UCFW and organizations named in the injunction demonstrated at Walmarts in Laurel, MD and suburban Baltimore on Black Friday.
Mike Wilson of RESPECT DC, a group supporting Walmart workers which is named along with UCFW in the lawsuit, isn’t discouraged by Walmart’s win last week in court. “I would say that Walmart’s legal strategy, while frustrating, has not been, and will not be, successful,” he said. “While they may convince some judges to bar supporters from stores in certain parts of the country, they cannot bar their employees, more and more of whom are standing up publicly and fighting back. We will continue to stand with these employees in Maryland, and across the region and the country.”
