Walmart walkout, a protest by employees planned for Black Friday 2012, the biggest shopping day of the year, has shed new light on how little employees at the world's biggest retailer earn.
Walmart employees are holding walkouts across the country as they protest against low wages, spiking health care premiums, and alleged retaliation from management.
According to a report by the Huffington Post, one employee, Lisa, who did not want to give her last name, is seven months pregnant and works at the deli counter of a Walmart in Illinois. She earns $9.10 an hour, or about $13,000 a year on part-time hours and recently filed for bankruptcy.
"I don't have underwear without holes in them," she said. "Everyone at work wears T-shirts that are threadbare. I have just enough to eat and get gas to make it to work for the next two weeks."
Walmart now seems like a dead-end to poverty, she adds.
Walmart gives raises of 20 to 40 cents an hour through incremental promotion to low-level workers who typically start near minimum wage, according to Walmart pay policy. For flawless performance, the company gives a 60 cent raise per year, regardless of how much time an employee has worked for the company.
As a result, a "solid performer" who starts at Walmart as a cart pusher making $8 an hour and receives one promotion, about the average rate, can expect to make $10.60 after working at the company for 6 years.
The Walmart walkout employees are part of a union-backed employee coalition called Making Change at Wal-Mart, and they warn that this is only the beginning of a wave of protests and strikes leading up to next week's Black Friday.
"We have to borrow money from each other just to make it to work," said Colby Harris, who earns $8.90 an hour after having worked at a Wal-Mart in Lancaster, Tex., for three years. "I'm on my lunch break right now, and I have two dollars in my pocket. I'm deciding whether to use it to buy lunch or to hold on to it for next week."
Walmart and other large retail stores like Target and Sears are planning to open retail stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving night. Employees said they weren't given a choice as to whether they would work on Thanksgiving and were told to do so with little warning. The workers said that when they complain about scheduling and other problems, management cuts their hours or fires people.
Charlene Fletcher, who works with her husband William at a Walmart in Duarte, Calif., became enraged when she learned that both were scheduled to work on Thanksgiving, missing the holiday with their children, ages 2 and 5, according to Fox News.
"It's heartbreaking to miss the holiday with them, and it's just one more way that Walmart is showing its disregard for our families," Fletcher said in a statement. "But when our co-workers speak out about problems like these, Walmart turns their schedules upside down, cuts their hours and even fires people. We're going on strike for an end to Walmart's attempts to silence its workers.
