August, 22 2013, 12:45pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lynsey Kryzwick: 917.683.4474; Derrick Plummer: 202.251.9459; Giovanna Frank-Vitale: 646.200.5334
Walmart Workers Risk Arrest in Protest of Low Wages, Illegal Retaliation
Workers Set Labor Day Deadline for Executives to Make Changes
WASHINGTON
Following a surge in illegal retaliation against workers speaking out for better jobs at Walmart, a group of current and recently-fired Walmart workers, along with hundreds of community supporters, protested outside the company's offices in Washington, DC Thursday afternoon.
Citing calls for better jobs and an end to the illegal retaliation that have gone unanswered by the country's largest employer, several Walmart workers are risking arrest blocking the door in front of the company's DC offices when company officials refused to address their concerns.
"Enough is enough. We cannot wait any longer for Walmart to do what's right for its workers and our families and all of our communities," said Barbara Collins, a single mother who was recently fired after six years working at Walmart in Placerville, CA. "If we are not reinstated and real changes to improve jobs are not made by Labor Day, we will be back to protest at Walmart stores across the country. This is just the beginning."
With hundreds of DC-area residents supporting them, the group rallied outside Walmart's DC offices to try to get the company to publicly commit to increasing wages and end the aggressive retaliation that workers have been facing. With no response from company representatives, a group of workers are risking arrest for refusing to leave with their concerns unaddressed. Drawing on the civil rights movement for inspiration, the workers acknowledged Americans throughout history who used non-violent civil disobedience to make their voices heard when all else has failed.
"It shouldn't have to come to this. As the largest company in America, Walmart should be creating good jobs for our country without protest or question," said Nikki Lewis of Jobs with Justice in DC.
Walmart wages have been hotly debated nationwide, especially in DC, where the City Council recently passed a bill requiring large, profitable retailers to pay a minimum hourly wage of $12.50 an hour. While Walmart claims that the company pays more than that, outside sources report starting wages that are less than $9 an hour.
"With $16 billion in profits for the company and the wealth of 42% of American families combined in the pockets of the Walton family, Walmart can and must do more to create good jobs," said Heidi Shierholz, economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "With its size and wealth, Walmart could be making an impact in strengthening and growing our middle class, but instead, Walmart workers are forced to rely on food stamps and other public supports to cover the basics."
Calling for Walmart to publicly commit to paying full-time work at a minimum rate of $25,000 a year, OUR Walmart's concerns are gaining support from workers, community leaders and shareholders. At this year's annual shareholder meeting, OUR Walmart member Janet Sparks, joined by 100 striking workers from across the country, spoke about the insufficient hours, low wages and short-staffing that are hurting customer service at stores. Additionally, Walmart employees are some of the main recipients of food stamps, Medicaid and government support.
But rather than provide good jobs that American workers need and deserve, Walmart is spending its time and money trying to deny a decent day's pay and trying to silence workers who are standing up with their co-workers to live better. Since strikes in June, Walmart has illegally disciplined nearly 80 workers, including 20 worker-leaders who have been fired.
"We've had enough of Walmart's lip-service and lies," said Lucas Handy of Fort Dodge, IA. "We need full-time hours, we need better wages, and we need our jobs back with the promise that the retaliation against OUR Walmart will stop."
OUR Walmart, or Organization United for Respect at Walmart, formed just two years ago, when 100 Walmart associates came together to voice their concerns about the company. With thousands of members across the country, the group organized the first strikes in company history last year and helped bring more than 30,000 supporters to protest at stores on Black Friday in 2012.
Follow the conversation and see photos at @ChangeWalmart, #WalmartStrikers and ChangeWalmart.org/Tumblr
OUR Walmart works to ensure that every Associate, regardless of his or her title, age, race, or sex, is respected at Walmart. We join together to offer strength and support in addressing the challenges that arise in our stores and our company everyday.
LATEST NEWS
Biden's Bid to Tax the Rich Could Be the 2024 Lift the President Needs
New polling finds a majority of Americans across party lines support raising taxes on billionaires.
Mar 27, 2024
During his State of the Union address, U.S. President Joe Biden declared that he wants to raise taxes on the rich, and polling results published Tuesday show that both Democratic and Republican voters in important swing states support doing so.
The polling firm Morning Consult reports that 69% of registered voters in seven swing states say they support raising taxes on billionaires. That includes states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
One of the most consistently popular policy proposals, across parties, is raising taxes on the rich. https://t.co/1fwJK5z0EN
— David Roberts (@drvolts) March 26, 2024
The poll found 58% of Republicans, 83% of Democrats, and 66% of independents support raising taxes on billionaires. The poll also found similar numbers of voters support raising taxes on people who make more than $400,000 per year.
Biden's 2025 budget plan includes a hike in taxes on the rich that would generate significant revenue for the federal government.
"Biden proposes to raise $503 billion over the next decade by imposing a 25% tax on people who claim more than $100 million in assets—a source of wealth that has long been beyond the reach of the [Internal Revenue Service]," The Washington Postreports.
In a New York Times opinion piece that was published on Wednesday, Felicia Wong, president and chief executive of the progressive advocacy organization Roosevelt Forward, outlined how opinions have changed about how much wealth is too much and if it should be more heavily taxed.
"Should we have trillionaires? Should we even have billionaires? According to at least one recent analysis, the economy is on track to mint its first trillionaire—that is 1,000 billion—within a decade. Such staggering accumulations of wealth are made possible in large part by the fact that America's federal tax burden is so comparatively light," Wong wrote. "After a long period of seeming to venerate the 1 %, or the 1% of 1% of 1%, American sentiment is swinging hard against this imbalance."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Groups Warn Gang Crackdown in El Salvador Has Led to Human Rights Crisis
"Reducing gang violence by replacing it with state violence cannot be a success," said one Amnesty International official.
Mar 27, 2024
Two years after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele declared a "state of exception" that was originally adopted for a 30-day period in response for a spate of apparent gang killings, the government is boasting that its policies have driven down the homicide rate by 70%—but international rights defenders on Wednesday warned the crackdown has plunged the country into a human rights crisis.
Amnesty International said that according to local victims' movements and human rights groups, El Salvador's former murder rate has been replaced by 327 cases of forced disappearances since March 2022, as well as 78,000 arbitrary detentions as police have raided neighborhoods, particularly in low-income areas.
"A total of approximately 102,000 people [are] now deprived of their freedom in the country—a situation of prison overcrowding of approximately 148% percent and at least 235 deaths in state custody," said Amnesty.
Bukele adopted the state of emergency after El Salvador reported its deadliest peak in apparent gang violence in recent history, with gangs blamed for 92 people's deaths over three days in March 2022.
Under the emergency order, authorities have suspended the right to privacy in communications, to be informed of the reason for one's arrest, and to be taken before a judge within 72 hours of an arrest. A report by Human Rights Watch in December 2022 also warned of "torture, or other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment against people accused of crimes." Officers told people during arrests only that they were following "orders from the president," and in some cases, told people they were being taken to a police station for "questioning" when they were actually under arrest.
"The insistence of Nayib Bukele's government on maintaining the state of emergency, the adoption of disproportionate measures, and the denial, minimization, and concealment of reported serious human rights violations reflect the government's unwillingness to fulfill its duty to respect and promote human rights in the country," Ana Piquer, Amnesty International's Americas director, said Wednesday. "It also demonstrates its inability to design comprehensive long-term measures to address the root causes of violence and criminality without forcing the population to choose between security and freedom."
Amnesty's statement came a day after Justice and Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro said Bukele's government plans to continue its strategy to "eradicate this endemic evil."
"This war against these terrorists will continue," said Villatoro in a televised address.
Despite outcry from domestic and international human rights groups, Bukele won his reelection campaign in a landslide last month. El Faro reported that Bukele's government had violated some election rules including airing ads within three days of the election and campaigning on Election Day. Some poll workers also wore clothes identifying them as supporters of Bukele's Nueva Ideas party, and police allegedly blocked journalists from working near polling locations, prompting accusations of intimidation and harassment by the Association of Journalists of El Salvador.
The Due Process of Law Foundation released a report Tuesday warning that Bukele's government could be guilty of crimes against humanity as it continues its crackdown.
"Well over 76,000 people, including minors, have been detained under the state of exception, accused of having ties to gangs," wrote the group. "Many or most of these detentions appear to be occurring without any reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person may have committed a crime. Mere physical appearance—including having tattoos—seems to be enough to put people at risk of arrest, with young men from poor districts a particular target. Arrests of this nature are in themselves discriminatory, and may well qualify as arbitrary. According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, under customary
international law, 'The legal basis justifying... detention must be accessible, understandable, nonretroactive, and applied in a consistent and predictable way.'"
Amnesty noted on Wednesday that human rights defenders and dissidents also face "increased risk" under the state of emergency, "as they are criminalized." As Common Dreams reported this week, five water defenders are scheduled to stand trial on April 3 for allegedly killing a military informant, an accusation for which the government has produced no proof.
"In the absence of any kind of evaluation and checks and balances within the country, and with only a timid response from the international community, the false illusion has been created that President Bukele has found the magic formula to solve the very complex problems of violence and criminality in a seemingly simple way. But reducing gang violence by replacing it with state violence cannot be a success," said Piquer. "The authorities in El Salvador must focus the state response on comprehensive policies that respect human rights and seek long-term solutions."
"The international community," she added, "must respond in a robust, articulate and forceful manner, condemning any model of public security that is based on human rights violations."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Revolving Door Spins as Ex-Fossil Fuel Regulator Joins Carbon Capture Firm
"This move is intended to make sure policymakers continue to make bad bets on carbon capture ever working," said one critic.
Mar 27, 2024
CarbonCapture Inc. on Wednesday announced the appointment of Neil Chatterjee to its board of directors—sparking fresh criticism of technology to capture and store carbon dioxide, the former U.S. regulator, and the revolving door between government and industry.
Chatterjee was appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Chatterjee served as FERC's chair twice before his term expired in 2021. Prior to joining the commission, he advised U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on energy.
"After greenlighting oil and gas expansion at FERC, Chatterjee is now capitalizing off of attempts to undo those harms," Hannah Story Brown, a senior researcher in climate and governance at the Revolving Door Project, told Common Dreams. "It would have been far less costly to the public interest and the public purse if Chatterjee had helped stanch the flow of carbon pollution into our atmosphere when he was in the position to."
"After greenlighting oil and gas expansion at FERC, Chatterjee is now capitalizing off of attempts to undo those harms."
Food & Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh said that "the so-called 'carbon capture' industry relies on billions of dollars in giveaways from the federal government, so it should not be a surprise that a company like this would add a Beltway insider to its board of directors."
CarbonCapture Inc.'s statement on Chatterjee celebrates his "deep ties in Washington and across the industry," saying that "in his time on Capitol Hill and at FERC, he established a reputation as a bipartisan operator who built alliances and cut through red tape."
The company's CEO, Adrian Corless, said that Chatterjee's "deep understanding of the energy landscape in the U.S. and abroad will be incredibly important as we source large amounts of clean energy in the face of grid expansion challenges and bottlenecks."
The firm builds "deeply modular" direct air capture (DAC) machines, which "use solid sorbents that soak up atmospheric CO2 when cooled and release concentrated CO2 when heated," as its website details. "The captured CO2 can then be permanently stored underground or used to make synthetic fuels, low-carbon concrete, carbon black, or other industrial products that require clean CO2."
Stressing the need to "decarbonize the atmosphere as quickly as possible," Chatterjee said Wednesday that "CarbonCapture's groundbreaking, modular direct air capture machines have put our country on the fast track to scale a proven solution at the speed and cost necessary to make a meaningful impact."
Food & Water Watch agrees that the warming world requires swift and sweeping action on planet-heating pollution. Along with advocating for a rapid and just global phaseout of fossil fuels, the group prioritizes "calling foul on fake solutions" to the climate emergency.
"The fossil fuel industries are eager to tout carbon waste sequestration and direct air capture because they bolster the dominance of dirty energy sources like oil and gas," Walsh told Common Dreams. "This is why they are called 'false solutions'—they delay the necessary actions to get off fossil fuels."
Citing an International Energy Agency analyst in an article about the "major hurdles" that remain as DAC ramps up, Yale Environment 360reported last week that "about three-quarters of all globally captured CO2 (which comes mainly from industrial flue stacks) is currently being used for enhanced oil recovery," which involves injecting CO2 into wells to bury it and extract more oil.
As a pair of Walsh's colleagues detailed for Food & Water Watch's website last year, other issues with DAC include the technology's high energy needs, toxic solvents, and risky storage options.
"Carbon capture has a long history of failure in the real world, but these companies have had great success in securing billions in government handouts."
"Carbon capture has a long history of failure in the real world, but these companies have had great success in securing billions in government handouts," Walsh said. In terms of Chatterjee's appointment, he added that "this move is intended to make sure policymakers continue to make bad bets on carbon capture ever working."
As Story Brown pointed out, "Neil Chatterjee's prototypical spin of the revolving door, moving from pro-industry regulator to regulated industry, comes with added irony."
"As a regulator, he positioned himself as preferring market-based 'solutions' over government mandates, subsidies, and regulations," she explained. "But all that skepticism apparently vanished when he joined the carbon capture business, whose only hope of profitability comes from government subsidies like those in the Inflation Reduction Act."
Corless was among those who welcomed what Timecalled a "bonanza for the carbon capture industry" in the 2022 legislation. Shortly before President Joe Biden signed the bill, the CEO said that "it's going to make it easy for us to raise the capital to build the project earlier and to build it faster."
However, it's not just the government that is bankrolling CarbonCapture Inc. and similar ventures, as Story Brown noted.
"Neil Chatterjee hasn't left the lure of market magic behind," she said. "His firm has pre-sold millions in carbon removal credits so that energy-guzzling firms from Amazon to Aramco can greenwash their operations."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular