Walmart employees protest, plan Black Friday walkout

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More than 100 Walmart employees were protesting outside of the Pico Rivera superstore on Washington Boulevard Tuesday morning.

They joined thousands of employees at stores around the country who are angry about low wages, cut hours and increased workloads. The protestors are also threatening to walkout and strike on Thanksgiving night, due to Walmart opening its doors early for its Black Friday sale.

The store will be opening at 8 p.m. Thursday, as opposed to midnight, making employees like Evelin Cruz, a department manager, angry with the company.

Cruz has been an employee at Walmart for more than eight years. She said the work environment has gotten worse and worse as time goes on.

“They cut hours, they understaff us, they over work us,” she said. “They definitely don’t pay enough and now they’re taking our holidays away.”

Walmart’s Black Friday sale is notorious as an all-night affair of crazed shoppers looking to score goods for next-to-nothing prices. And with the ordeal starting four hours earlier Walmart employees say they no longer get any time to be with their families.

“(My family is) used to me working on Friday at midnight,” Cruz said. “We were able to at least eat dinner with them and then come in and work. Now we don’t even get to do that.”

Most customers watching the protest said they felt for the employees.

“To make them work Thanksgiving I think that’s wrong because they have families and they want to enjoy with family too,” said Maria de los Santos, who plans to avoid the store this Black Friday. “Not everything is money, money, money.”

Walmart officials said in a statement that the pay and benefits they offer are as good or better than their retail competitors.

The company has bombarded social media saying the workers’ claims are unwarranted.

One tweet from Walmart’s media account reads: “Don’t believe everything you read in the union press releases. We don’t think their Black Friday activity will have an impact on customers.”

Another simply states: “we think Black Friday at Walmart will be awesome this year, regardless of the naysayers.”

Additionally the company’s main twitter account, @Walmart, is using Twitter’s new paid promotion system to place tweets about their electronics deals at the top of every user’s newsfeed.

This apparent disregard of workers’ complaints, and lack of open communication, is what is bothering Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

“Walmart juts needs to sit down and talk to them and solve the issues,” Durazo said. “There’s no need for a picket line.”

“And that’s why we expect workers, employees of Walmart, all over the county in many different stores are going to walk out on Black Friday.”

However, Walmart Spokesman Dan Fogleman says most of the people participating in the protests around the country today aren’t even Walmart employees.

Rather, he believes most of the participants are union representatives and union members from other companies.

Employee Evelin Cruz counters that many more employees want to speak but are afraid.

“We are not a union, we are Walmart associates.”

As this conflict has been unfolding, there has been backlash from unemployed people across the country who say Walmart employees should be happy they have a job to begin with, given the current economic status.

“That’s a very valid point. I should be grateful but they have to understand we are human beings, we do have families, we do have families that we have to support and that’s why Walmart does what it does,” Cruz said.

She believes the company is taking advantage of the fact that its workers aren’t likely to quit and look for work elsewhere.

Cruz says she and many other employees at the Pico Rivera store are prepared to stage a walkout on Black Friday if Walmart continues to ignore their pleas.