As shoppers crowd Wal-Mart this Black Friday, employees from the store in over 100 cities and seven states across the United States go through with the much talked about strike.
Employees outside a Wal-Mart in Dallas, Texas were heard chanting, ""Wal-mart cuts hours and benefits to push people out...It's the same thing at Walgreens. The workers are suffering while billionaires make all the money," as reported by Huffington Post.
Despite attempts made by Wal-Mart to stall many of its workers from going on strike the day of Black Friday, OUR Wal-Mart, one of the labor unions responsible for organizing the strike, says that it intends to follow through with it.
The Business Insider aptly points out that the strike will likely be an "added dimension of chaos at Wal-Mart on Black Friday."
Earlier this week the huge retail chain store Wal-Mart, failed in its attempt to fight back to prevent a potential walkout by its employees on one of the busiest days of the year, Black Friday. According to news sources, Wal-Mart workers are planning to go on strike the day of Black Friday due to the work hours.
According to CNN Money, the store filed a complaint in a federal agency against United Food and Commercial Workers Union and its subsidiary, OURWalmart, alleging that these unions were organizing illegal strikes. According to CNN, the complaint accuses "one of the largest labor unions in the country of unlawfully organizing picket lines, in-store "flash mobs" and other demonstrations in the past six months."
Sources claim that employees are to start work at 8:00 pm on Thanksgiving Day.
Fox News states that workers of Wal-Mart are a part of an employee-coalition, which is supported by the Union. Strikes have already begun in some regions of California and Seattle on Wednesday, November 14. Reports suggest that the strikes are intended to continue on Black Friday. Wal-Mart employees in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Washington D.C., all intend to go on strike if their demands are not met.
"If Wal-Mart doesn't end its attempts to silence workers, they will make Black Friday a very memorable day for the company - complete with actions inside and outside of the stores and a possible nationwide strike," according to what the coalition tells Fox News.
Casey Hoag, Communications spokesperson for The United Food and Commercial Workers told Patch News "These nationwide actions are all stemming from employee frustrations. The average associate makes $8.18 an hour. Wal-Mart makes $16 billion in annual profits and executives bring home $10 million each. Surely Wal-Mart can stop contributing to the growing problem of income disparity and start listening to the concerns of their workforce."
As of now there is no news of any New York Wal-Mart employees joining in the strike.
Black Friday is a busy day for the American consumer market, expected to provide a much-needed boost to the economy.
