Strikes at Walmart Warehouses Expose Threats in Supply Chain

[limpyhobbler]

A strike at Walmart? Two of them. In a time when few union members dare strike, three dozen Southern California workers who move goods for Walmart were desperate enough to walk off their jobs September 12 even without union protection

Three days later, 30 workers who’d been organizing with Warehouse Workers for Justice in Elwood, Illinois, southwest of Chicago, walked out, too. Chicago, walked out, too.

Both groups of workers had taken legal action against their employers, contractors who move goods for Walmart, and their strikes were protesting illegal retaliation.

California strikers asked the NLRB to investigate a half dozen unfair labor practices: retaliation against and surveillance of those who’ve been organizing with the energetic Warehouse Workers United (WWU) worker center, an affiliate of the Change to Win federation, for better conditions....

Read more: http://labornotes.org/2012/09/strikes-expose-hazards-walmarts-supply-chain

[limpyhobbler]

1. Security Forces Arrest Supporters of Striking Walmart Warehouse Workers

Community, faith and labor organizations mobilized this afternoon for a rally and civil disobedience action in support of thirty-eight workers on strike at a Walmart warehouse in Elwood, Illinois. They marched down to this distribution center, and, at least thirteen clergy and community leaders sat down and blocked an entrance to the center to prevent goods from arriving or leaving the warehouse. After the leaders sat down in the road, a security force believed to be the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System Mobile Field Force, clad in riot gear, marched out and surrounded the leaders.

The security force arrested all of the people committing civil disobedience. They had an officer with a camera taking video of the action. They also drove a Humvee with an Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) out into the street and parked fifty to one hundred feet away from where people were being arrested. The warehouse was, according to Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ), completely shut down.

Live streamer “MoccupyChi” was on hand and captured the entire action, including the paramilitary force that greeted those engaged in nonviolent action.

Walmart had a private security force on hand to arrest clergy and community leaders there to support workers because the distribution center is located in a Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ). The distribution center, as WWJ’s website details, is also “one of the most important transportation and distribution hubs in the world.”...

complete article: http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/10/01/private-security-force-arrests-supporters-of-striking-walmart-warehouse-workers/

video:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25846187

which I found via via fwwm in the Occupy forum
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12523869