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"Everyone is part-timed to death at these stores," Walton said. "When they sign up for these shifts, it's 'I don't get enough hours, I'm dying for hours, so I'll work these shifts.' Until we do something to stop the part-timing of the workforce, we're going to see this happen." "Workers want to stop

Forget the stampeding shoppers, the half-priced waffle irons, or the pepper spray wielding wackos: barring a federal intervention, the main event this Black Friday could turn out to be a showdown between organized labor and its arch corporate nemesis, Wal-Mart.

This strike follows a cluster of other Walmart strikes across the country over things like unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, excessive hours, and low pay. Learn more after the jump. Natasha Lennard reports:

More broadly, the widening inequality reflected in the gap between the pay of Walmart workers and the returns to Walmart investors, including the Walton fammily, haunts the American economy.

A new study released by the progressive think tank Demos on Monday estimated that if retail workers were given a living wage, hundreds of thousands of Americans would be lifted out of poverty and the wage boost would significantly bolster the economy.

Stories of voter purge attempts and voter bullying across the country.

By 2020, more than one-quarter of U.S. workers will be working low-wage jobs, not making enough money to keep a family of four out of poverty.

As planned Black Friday strikes draw increasing media attention, Walmart continues to publicly dismiss the actions as stunts and the workers involved as an unrepresentative fringe. But workers charge that behind closed doors, the company is waging a stepped-up campaign to to intimidate them out of

Requiring people to show government issued photo identification in order to vote is unnecessary, discriminatory and has the potential to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of people.

Walmart is by far the nation's largest retailer, with 2.2 million employees (the next largest is Target with 365,000), and its low wages have set the tone for a nation where the majority of jobs created in the so-called economic recovery pay less than $13.83 per hour.