Anti-Walmart Flash Mob Strikes Again - Walmart Free NYC & Jobs for Justice

A Few Weeks After Focusing on Related Co., the Flash Mob Disrupts Wal-mart CEO Mike Duke Appearance in Bryant Prk

Activists Promise to Continue Disrupting Wal-mart and It's Partners

On April 27, Walmart CEO Mike Duke visited New York City to have breakfast with the Wall Street Journal and a roomful of corporate elites. Everyday New Yorkers weren't invited. But we have a lot of strong opinions about his plans to take over our city and flood it with poverty wage jobs. So we decided to throw him a little surprise party, brass band in tow!

A hundred singing and dancing activists converged on Bryant Park on Wednesday to protest Walmart for its record of mistreating women, African Americans and Latinos and the LGBT community, and to confront Walmart CEO Mike Duke in person.


New York Jobs with Justice and members of the Walmart-Free NYC Coalition, including RWDSU, the Retail Action Project, New York Communities for Change, and Make the Road NY, held up yellow frowny-face masks and surrounded the windows of the Bryant Park Grill, chanting “Walmart cheats, Walmart hates, Walmart discriminates!” for nearly an hour as Mike Duke spoke inside.



Amid the chanting, a brass band loudly performed a dance number in front of the windows called "Mr. Walmart," modeled on Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff,” with a drag-clad Lady Liberty telling a performer dressed as Mr. Walmart on stilts, "Who do you think you are?/ Mr. Walmart/ You’re never gonna get my love."



“Walmart can spend as much money as it wants to buy its way into New York,” said Javier Valdes, Deputy Director of Make the Road NY, one of New York City’s largest community organizations. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Walmart doesn’t share New York’s values. They have settled a lawsuit for discriminating against black truck drivers, fired Latino workers who complained about being called racial slurs, and is facing the largest sex discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history.”



Walmart is reportedly looking to open many stores throughout the five boroughs. One possible location is the Gateway II development in East New York, Brooklyn, which is being developed by the Related Companies, who was the focus of the first Anti-Walmart flash mob. The site was subject to a lengthy community planning process, and Related’s recently reported move to introduce a Walmart into those plans without community consent have raised a flurry of opposition from concerned residents, community organizations and local elected officials.



At a recent Housing Preservation and Development hearing, concerns were raised that the City-sponsored appraisal of the land was incomplete.



According to event organizer Austin Guest of NY Jobs with Justice, “If Walmart opens stores in our city, there is no indication that they will stop their track record of killing local jobs, treating workers poorly, and eliminating competition from responsible employers. We will keep following Walmart and its allies to make sure that New Yorkers know what Walmart will bring with them into New York.”



For more information, visit www.walmartfreenyc.com

NYC Community Organizations Blast Wal-mart for Partnering with Predatory Lender Jackson Hewitt

Citing History of Targeting Low-Income Families, City’s Biggest Community Organizations Join Coalition to Keep Wal-mart Out of City

On the last day for employers to send out 2010 W-2 notices, a group of New York City’s most powerful community-based organizations blasted Wal-mart for its recently announced partnership with Jackson-Hewitt, a tax preparation firm that specializes in controversial Refund Anticipation Loans.

According to Jon Kest, Executive Director of New York Communities for Change, “By partnering with one of the nation’s most notorious predatory lenders, Wal-mart has once again shown its true colors. While the company may claim to care about low income families, deals like this show their real goal is to make as much money off the backs of poor people as possible.”

Refund Anticipation Loans charge interest rates as high as 24% APR in exchange for giving taxpayers an advance on their expected tax refunds. The loans frequently target low-income families, and the IRS has long sought to ban them. Jackson Hewitt is poised to become the largest provider of such loans in the nation.

With Jackson Hewitt announcing this January that it would open service stations in over 2,000 Wal-marts around the country, leaders of many organizations representing low income New Yorkers worry that Wal-mart’s plans to open up stores in New York City could leave their members subject to exploitation.

Several community-based organizations will soon vote on endorsing the Wal-mart Free NYC Coalition, a growing alliance of workers, residents, small business owners, community leaders, clergy, and elected officials committed to keeping Wal-mart out of New York City.

Today, New York Communities for Change, Make the Road New York, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), and Picture the Homeless all announced their official endorsements of the Wal-mart Free NYC coalition.

One Make the Road New York member who runs a small business providing tax assistance to low income families across the city said he supports his organization opposing Wal-mart because the company would prevent small business owners like him from helping the community.

“As someone who works preparing people’s taxes, I know that Jackson Hewitt’s practices are predatory, and I think the fact that Wal-mart and Jackson Hewitt are working together is a sham. It just shows how much Wal-mart cares about the neighborhoods where it opens its stores. Jackson Hewitt’s practices don’t treat people right, and neither do Wal-mart’s. Instead of focusing on these big companies, we should be focusing on how businesses like mine and others like it can flourish, and how New York City can strengthen its small business motor.” said Carlos Bustamante, President of EZ Tax New York and member of Make the Road New York’s Small Business United project.

Walmart? FUHGEDDABOUTIT! - New York Communities for Change.org

On June 23rd, New York Communities for Change, alongside Working Families Party, RWDSU, SEIU local 32BJ, and the New York City Council Progressive Caucus (among others) rallied on the steps of City Hall to protest the proposal to open a Walmart in Brooklyn.

The message was clear - hard-working families in Brooklyn and throughout the 5 boroughs are OPPOSED to Walmart's low wages and mistreatment of employees.

NYCC and our allies put together this video message to Walmart. Wanna open up shop in Brooklyn? FUHGEDDABOUTIT!



Spread the word about the fight to stop Wal-Mart and share the video with your family and friends!

Walmart Protest Fizzles — Is Opposition to Retail Behemoth Slowing? by Stephen Witt - YourNabe.com

Opposition doesn't seem to be slowing to me, as evidenced by this community protest...Wait until the unions get involved...Wal-mart needs to pay living wages if they want to gain a foothold in NYC...

Read original...

A smaller-than-expected crowd showed up last week at Starrett City to protest Walmart’s proposed first New York City superstore.

Organizers of the rally last Thursday at the nation’s largest low- and moderate-income housing complex predicted a turnout of 100 people, but about half that attended — many holding placards decrying the big-box retail giant’s alleged history of employee abuses, discrimination and wage theft.

“The last thing we need is a Walmart coming in to take over the neighborhood and give out minimum-wage jobs,” said Starrett City resident Maria Maisonett. “We need real jobs that pay living wages, not ones that wouldn’t even allow us to pay our rent.”

Starrett City resident Sofie Rosenblum said she was at the protest out of worry it would affect her current job.

“I work for Pathmark and my job is on the line,” said Rosenblum. “I represent the union. Walmart doesn’t treat its workers well.”

Rosenblum admitted that she occasionally shops at the non-union Target located at the nearby Gateway shopping center at Jamaica Bay — adjacent to the undeveloped Gateway II site that Walmart is eyeing.

“I do shop there, but they treat their workers better,” said Rosenblum.

Walmart executives have challenged that conventional wisdom, saying that Walmart salaries are competitive with what Target offers to both its full- and part-time workers.

“At Walmart, our associates have real opportunities to advance and build a career,” said Walmart President and CEO Mike Duke at the company’s June 2009 shareholders’ meeting. “Nearly three-quarters of store management in the U.S. started with us as hourly associates.

“And when the company does well financially, we share our results with associates,” he added. “In fact, for their 2008 performance, we distributed well over a billion dollars worldwide to hourly associates in incentive bonuses.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Workers at Brooklyn’s three Target stores reported the starting salary for part-time employees is $8.50, including options to sign onto a medical and retirement plan.

Similarly, employees at Walmart’s North Bergen, N.J. store said that starting salaries for part-time workers ranged from $8–$15 per hour, depending on department — also including options to sign up for the medical and retirement plans.

New York Communities for Change, an offshoot of the controversial grassroots organization ACORN, organized the protest, calling it the start of a full-fledged campaign to stop the Bentonville behemoth from coming to the city.

“There will be more events in the future,” said organization spokesman Jonathan Westin. “In the future, we will get a lot of City Council people and more community support against Walmart.”