For the first time in history, Wal-Mart workers have gone on strike. Workers participating in the one-day strike at several Southern California stores say they are striking to protest attempts by Wal-Mart to silence and retaliate against associates who speak out about working conditions, low-pay, lack of respect and other issues that plague workers at the notorious anti-union retail giant.
While the striking workers are not union members, they have joined together in OUR Wal-Mart, a worker-led organization that stands up to make change in its company.
Josh Eidelson at Salon.com reports:
The strikers are taking a risk. With certain exceptions, courts have found that U.S. law prohibits disciplining non-union workers who go on strike in an effort to improve their working conditions. “The bottom line,” former NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Liebman said yesterday, “is non-union people, as well as unionized people, have a right to concertedly walk off the job in protest.”…But Wal-Mart strikers said yesterday that they expect the company will seek ways to punish them anyway.