Walmart workers in 10 countries joined a global day of action on Wednesday to demand better wages and treatment for employees, as a public interest group nominated the retailer for a Lifetime Award as “worst corporation in the world”.
Organizers with the group OUR Walmart estimated that about 300 protesters would march on Walmart’s headquarters in India and block the gate. Another 200 people were expected to protest at the company’s headquarters in Mexico City. Workers in Argentina, Brazil and Canada were also expected to participate.
In the US, despite steady rain, workers gathered in Miami at 1pm local time outside Walmart’s Latin American headquarters. Turnout was about half of the expected 100 people, organizers said.
“I’m standing with protesters all over the world today to send a message to Walmart and the Waltons that we need better pay,” said Emily Wells, one of the protesters. Wells makes $9.50 an hour and relies on food stamps to make ends meet. “As the richest family in America and one of the richest in the world, we all know the Waltons can afford to pay $15 an hour to the workers that make them richer every day.”
The Walton family, which descended from founder Sam Walton and owns more than half of Walmart, is worth about $145bn.
As the protests played out, Public Eye, a campaign started by the Berne Declaration and Greenpeace in 2005 as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum’s yearly meeting in Davos, Switzerland, declared Walmart a nominee for “worst corporation in the world”.
In 2005, Walmart received a Public Eye award in the labor category for “lack of respect for human and labor rights along its supply chain in places such as Lesotho, Kenya, and Thailand”. This year, Public Eye will give a lifetime achievement award to one of its previous winners. Walmart was nominated by the UNI Global Union. Goldman Sachs and Chevron are also among those nominated. Consumers can submit their votes over the next two months.
Walmart operates 11,156 stores in 27 countries – including South Africa, China, India, Mexico and Chile. The company’s assets in the United States include 4,344 stores and 643 Sam’s Club stores. While fewer than half of Walmart’s stores are located in the US, 59% of its workforce, or about 1.3 million workers, live here.
Members from about 2,224 US stores have signed a petition calling on Walmart to raise the hourly wage to $15. As part of the global day of action, protesters in Miami attempted to hand-deliver a petition from 2,100 stores to the company’s headquarters but were turned away by the security. Police were called, organizers say, but no arrests were made.
In a previous attempt by workers to deliver a petition to Walmart heiress Alice Walton, 26 of them were arrested for blocking traffic outside her New York City building. Courtney Moore, who works at Walmart in Ohio and makes $8.35 an hour, said at the time that the doorman, who was sympathetic to the workers’ cause, promised to personally deliver the petition to Walton.
In the month since that protest, neither the company nor Alice Walton have responded to the petition.
