“Working moms” employed by the world's biggest retailer, Walmart, have walked off their jobs in a number of cities across the United States. Union organizers said employees walked picket lines Wednesday throughout the day in 20 cities including Tampa, Miami, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Under the banner of "Walmart moms," mothers who work at Walmart launched strikes in 20 cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest what they say are poverty wages and routine policies of retaliation against workers who organize. From Chicago to Pittsburgh to Miami, the mass actions were part of rolling strikes launched last Friday by Our Walmart members.
Walmart workers speaking at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Friday said the megastore’s staffing problems and poor pay were hurting the company’s image and contributing to lagging sales.
Their statement comes after a week of rallies across the country by labor activists, union representatives and workers in cities such as Chicago; Dayton, Ohio; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The demonstrators have taken aim at the plight of the company’s low-wage employees and the burden they say Walmart’s staffing policies place on working mothers.
(NEW YORK, NY) – In anticipation of the annual Walmart shareholders’ meeting this week, national public policy organization Dēmos has released a 2014 update of previous research detailing how Walmart can afford to give its workers a raise by redirecting the funds spent annually on buying back shares of Walmart’s own company stock.
Times are tough for creative people in the entertainment industry -- even as big profits roll in for corporations like Viacom and Disney. It's a familiar story, only in this case its film editors, make-up artists, and musicians who are getting creamed.
While many of Walmart's workers rely on food stamps and other government aid to make ends meet, its top eight executives are living better, thanks in part to $298 million in tax-deductible "performance pay" during the past six years.
Walmart employee Janet Sparks claims she's not making a living wage, but insists she's determined to change that. "Across the country, we're all standing together today," she told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune while holding up a protest sign outside of the big box store.
Sparks and five other Walmart employees, along with local group Walmart Moms and the AFL-CIO protested outside of the Cortana Mall Walmart Wednesday (June 4) as part of a national day of action against the chain store leading up to its annual shareholders' meeting.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer (and America's largest private employer), occupies a rather strange place in the business landscape: a technologically innovative company with a down-home reputation – a low-wage, low-benefit employer that prides itself on a family atmosphere. Walmart masks the lousy working conditions that make its profits with its particular form of market populism: millions of "Walmart moms" can't be wrong for wanting to "save money, live better", can they?
The idea of retirement in the U.S. often conjures up images of fit seniors strolling along the beach, enjoying a leisurely round of golf or perhaps sharing a meal in an exotic locale. For most people, however, the reality is far less glamorous.
Walmart's top brass and its shareholders face a confrontation with their "moms" at the company's annual shareholders meeting Friday in Fayetteville, Ark. That is, the "Walmart Moms" who are demanding higher wages from the nation's biggest employer. The labor union-supported workers' group is demanding a pay increase to $12.25 an hour, or $25,000 a year for full-time work. Organizers said that workers would picket on Wednesday outside stores in cities including Chicago, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Tampa.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer (and America's largest private employer), occupies a rather strange place in the business landscape: a technologically innovative company with a down-home reputation – a low-wage, low-benefit employer that prides itself on a family atmosphere. Walmart masks the lousy working conditions that make its profits with its particular form of market populism: millions of "Walmart moms" can't be wrong for wanting to "save money, live better", can they?
Alongside the everyday low prices, Walmart shoppers in Landover Hills, Maryland, might encounter Gail Todd. A mother of three who works there as a sales associate, Gail would like to work full time but has recently seen her schedule cut to as few as 12 hours a week. She has no idea how much she’ll end up making this year; even when she was working closer to full time, she expected to bring home just $17,000. Currently she and her family depend on D.C.’s public health care system, food stamps and low-income housing to stay afloat.
Even at the mall or a discount store, where women are courted and catered to, they are paid less than men. Women in US retail jobs earn on average $4 an hour less than men, or 72 cents for every dollar men make, according to a new report by Demos, a liberal nonprofit public policy organization. The overall pay gap for women in the US is around 80 cents.
NEW YORK, NY— A new report by the national public policy organization Demos reveals prevalent business practices in the retail sector such as low pay, erratic scheduling and scarcity of basic benefits are keeping millions of hard-working women and families near poverty.
In recent days the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, often working through independent contractors, has started cutting off service to up to 120,000 delinquent citizens, while giving a pass to major corporate laggards. The Great Recession has crushed the people of Detroit, with unemployment rates soaring as high as 35 percent in this period. At the end of 2013, 47 percent of the mortgages were still under water. They simply cannot pay. How could such draconian measures be justified?
In the coming days, you will be hearing a lot about working women. Not the women leaning in, not the women opting out, but the working women living in or near poverty.
An industry that’s one of the largest employers of women and one of the fastest job creators in the country also has a huge pay gap. The average female retail salesperson makes $10.58 per hour, while her average male colleague makes $14.62, according to a new study from Demos, a think tank focused on income inequality.
Executive Summary Today, women make up nearly half of America’s workforce, and there is little question that their success in the economy is critical to the nation’s prosperity. Yet every day across America, millions of women go to work in low paying jobs that fail to move their families out of poverty.
