Wal-Mart says it was all just a “mistake.” But when the giant retailer published its work schedule for superstore #2814 in Hialeah Gardens, Florida, many of their workers on the morning shift yesterday walked out in protest at their reduction in hours. By the afternoon, there were as many as 60 Wal-Mart workers in the parking lot. One person held a hand-lettered sign that read: “Wal-Mart, we are human, we want respect.” A Wal-Mart spokesman told the Miami Herald there was “a scheduling error.” ”It was a mistake, we’ve corrected it, and we’re taking appropriate actions to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We communicate with our employees in a fair and consistent manner.” Wal-Mart says they have a new attendance policy that requires workers to call a toll-free number when they are sick, and punishes them for unexcused absences. The following is an account by one of the protesting workers, as published by Retail Worker: “I’m an hourly associate at Wal-Mart #2814, a Supercenter in Hialeah Gardens, Florida. Today around 10AM approximately 40 first shift associates (including several Department Managers) staged a walk-out in protest of the recent schedule changes; specifically, some people had gotten ridiculously low hours scheduled (in some cases only 9 in a week) and EVERYONE was told to only do 35 hours from now on, even if the schedule said more (this was later rebuked, but the damage was already done.) The protesters clocked out and went out into the parking lot, where they were joined by several more associates who had the day off (myself included) and by a handful of associates from another nearby Supercenter, #1590. Supposedly the associates from 1590 were told that if they clocked out to protest they would be fired, so I believe only those with the day off showed up to show support, and the rest were scared into working their shift. On hand were cameramen from two local news channels (although I personally only witnessed one of them; the other I was only told about). Several associates were interviewed and told their grievances on-camera (in some cases not very calmly), and the group did a “march” around the parking lot chanting (in Spanish, so I’ll translate) “Here, now, we get our 40 hours” (it rhymes in spanish, trust me). A union representative (not sure which union) was there asking everyone to write their names and phone numbers on a clipboard, and was giving advice to one of the protest organizers (“get everything down in writing,” “it’s important to listen to the other side too,” etc.) A group of upper management types converged in our store to, I guess, deal with the situation. Amongst them I recognized the District Manager (Duane Noveh) and the Regional Manager (don’t remember his name.) Many of the departments were empty except for the Department Managers, and the front-end registers were being cashiered by CSMs, floor associates and even an Assistant Manager, with other Assistant Managers and a Co-Manager handling the key turns. The Store Manager was no where to be seen; I imagined him in his office having a very long conference call with Home Office. The District Manager attempted to have an impromptu meeting with the protesters outside the store, in front of cameras, but it got heated very quickly and he gave up. He claimed to have just gotten back from vacation and to not have known anything about anyone getting hours taken away, and promised the situation would be resolved, but no one really believed him. Later he sent a Support Manager (who was still working) out to talk us into going back inside to have a meeting to try to resolve the situation. At this point the crowd went inside, the cameras went away, and the protest was (for the moment) over. Everyone was told they had to clock in if they wanted to be at the meeting, but that you would have to cut the hours later to prevent overtime. Suffice it to say I and several others who had the day off went home. I won’t know until tomorrow how everything turned out, but it clearly sent a message. They may not listen to the message, but at least we tried, and maybe we
even got the ball rolling for eventual unionization.”
In recent weeks, Wal-Mart has announced caps in worker pay, coupled with more stringent workplace rules and a shifting emphasis to part-time labor. All these changes come as the company is losing “off the clock” lawsuits from its own “associates,” and facing increasing pressure to give its workers better wages and health care benefits. At a time when Wal-Mart is under more scrutiny than perhaps any other retailer in history, the company continues to operate as if no one is watching how they treat their more than 1.3 million domestic employees. Not only is the public watching and learning how the big company responds, but so are its associates. For earlier stories, search Newsflash by “wages” or “off the clock.”
