Five Wal-Mart employees were arrested for protesting their low wages, and fighting for higher income Thursday night CNN reported Friday.
"We will do everything in our power to listen and take action," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan told CNN Money.
The employees were cuffed with 49 other protestors including clergy members, and community organizers who were standing their ground in a two-day fight, according to the organization's advocate group Our Walmart CNN reported.
Protestors sat in the roadway in front of one of the retailer's Los Angeles locations, and workers who did not leave when the company's permit ran out at 6 p.m. were subsequently reprimanded after they reportedly ignored instruction from law enforcement.
"Wal-Mart is the largest retail employer in the world, and yet they choose to keep their employees working below poverty-level wages," Barbara Gertz, a Wal-Mart employee who works at a store in Denver told CNN in September at a rally in New York City. "Wal-Mart will continue to serve our customers in over 4,600 locations," the company said in a statement. "A handful of union-orchestrated media stunts, made up of primarily union members and activists, don't represent the views of the vast majority of the 1.3 million associates who do work for Wal-Mart."
The news is the latest development since workers protested their wages, and nine individuals, three being Wal-Mart workers were arrested in the store's exterior at the beginning of last year's holiday shopping season. Individuals were then let go without bail, while those with previous arrest warrants stayed.
"We had our best Black Friday ever and OUR Walmart was unable to recruit more than a small number of associates to participate in these made for TV events," David Tovar, vice president of corporate communications at Wal-Mart said in a statement at the time. "Press reports are now exposing what we have said all along -- the large majority of protesters aren't even Walmart workers."
