Baaahhhh HUMBUG!
If you haven't already heard, many Walmart employees have been told they must work on Thanksgiving. These workers, many supporting families, are non-union workers without the protection of a contract or organized representation.
We need to help them. We can do it now, Black Thursday or Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
There are two things happening here:
A. Walmart wants you to shop on Thanksgiving and will staff their stores to see that someone is there to take your money.
B. Walmart employees want to organize and have been trying for years, and having to walk away from or simply forget about their Thanksgiving celebrations with family and friends, is one of the reasons why.
Walmart is notorious for paying their employees low wages, little or no benefits, and is subject to thousands of complaints - including poor working conditions - to the federal labor board. These workers are some of the "47%" Romney spoke of, and are the Americans Romney, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh and friends claim voted for Obama so that they could get "free stuff."
If you are sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table with your uncle Ralph who listens to Rush Limbaugh and watches FOX news, and he wants to trash unions and accuse Walmart workers of taking actions that would raise prices on that 6 pack of tighty-whiteys he buys from their men's department, remind him that prices don't need to increase, the Walton family needs to start kicking in some of the billions they make every year.
According to an article in Huffington Post Business:
Walmart -- which paid its top six executives $59 million in compensation in the last fiscal year -- can afford to pay its workers more. But instead of investing in their workers, the Walton family -- whose combined family fortune is estimated to be over $100 billion -- has chosen to engage in elaborate stock buybacks that take earned corporate profits and put them back into the hands of shareholders. For Walmart, stock buybacks have been the reason the Walton family's interest in the company has risen to 51 percent -- shifting the control of a so-called public company into the hands of a private family.
If you feel like walking off some of that turkey and gravy and pumpkin pie, how about walking shoulder to shoulder with picketing workers at your local Walmart? Yes, you can join them, even if you don't work for Walmart.
To find the strike/walk/protest action in your area just type in your zip-code on this page.
Or, if you would prefer to stick around and argue about Politics with your Uncle Ralph a little longer, then there are many other things you and the rest of your friends and family can do to help. This page has information about everything from writing letters to the editor of your local paper, to downloading or simply using the graphics used on this post along with many more.
Spread the word.
Shop somewhere else.
Let's help these hard-working Americans get the dignity and respect they deserve.