{"id":1722,"date":"2012-11-19T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/wal-mart-faces-a-new-round-of-historic-strikes-but-why-now.html"},"modified":"2012-11-19T16:01:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T16:01:00","slug":"wal-mart-faces-a-new-round-of-historic-strikes-but-why-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/wal-mart-faces-a-new-round-of-historic-strikes-but-why-now.html","title":{"rendered":"Wal-Mart Faces a New Round of Historic Strikes… But Why Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

Last month, when strikers from Southern California arrived in Bentonville, Arkansas to protest Wal-Mart\u2019s labor practices with reggae beats, pots and pans, and a Latin American-inflected protest culture, it became clear to onlookers that America\u2019s superstore was no longer the small family business that Sam Walton had founded and grown in the cradle of the anti-labor culture of Southern evangelicaldom. But it\u2019s also become clear that Wal-Mart\u2019s own ambitions to become a global empire\u2014expanding beyond southern suburbs to new regions, and continuing to erode protections for its workers\u2014have brought the \u201cfamily values\u201d behemoth into confrontation with another kind of religious and labor rights tradition.<\/div>\n
Wal-Mart has long been the Holy Grail for labor organizers. The nation\u2019s largest retailer, it is notorious for its low wages, lack of benefits,\u00a0abusive labor practices<\/a>, and for leaving its workers dependent on public assistance while making the Walton family rich beyond imagination. And it has been nearly impossible to organize.<\/div>\n
Until now.<\/div>\n
Today, again, Wal-Mart workers are\u00a0on the picket lines<\/a>\u00a0outside warehouses in Mira Loma, California,\u00a0and more actions are expected elsewhere as the workers build their campaign. In October, 28 Wal-Marts saw retail workers walk off the job in protest, in stores from California to Maryland, Texas to Washington. Warehouse workers at Wal-Mart distribution centers outside Chicago and in Los Angeles have also gone out on strike\u2014and won. The full reinstatement and back pay\u00a0granted to the workers (averaging $900 for each) was unprecedented, leading one of the strikers to comment, \u201cI think there\u2019s been a\u00a0hit in Wal-Mart\u2019s armor<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, when strikers from Southern California arrived in Bentonville, Arkansas to protest Wal-Mart\u2019s labor practices with reggae beats, pots and pans, and a Latin American-inflected protest culture, it became clear to onlookers that America\u2019s superstore was no longer the small family business that Sam Walton had founded and grown in the cradle of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWal-Mart Faces a New Round of Historic Strikes... 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