I’m not sure why we had to start at 8 a.m. Why not from 10 a.m. to noon? It is difficult for me to get up when it’s dark outside.
Anyway we did it, meeting at the Stroudsburg Wal-Mart. The man in charge was from the Monroe-Pike Labor Chapter. Linda and I represented the Carbon County Labor Chapter. In all, about 15 demonstrators showed up, mostly from SEIU and UFCW.
We decided to stand at the entrance of Wal-Mart until we were asked to leave. We were there about 20 minutes when a cop showed up and told us that if we didn’t leave we would be arrested. We were holding signs and passing out fliers asking the customers to tell management they wanted better treatment for Wal-Mart employees, and we were getting positive response. Since none of us wanted to get arrested, we moved to the sidewalk. While we got a lot of good feedback (honking horns, fists in the air, thumbs up), we were not able to pass out the explanatory leaflets.
I was expecting a large crowd, given that it was “Black Friday,” but I was surprised to find only about 1/4 of the parking lot was full. Perhaps everyone went out on Thursday evening.
About 9:30 I really had to pee, so I went into the store and found the toilet. My record of never having bought anything from a Wal-Mart still stands, but now I have peed in one.
What did we accomplish? I think just about everyone in America knows that Wal-Mart is a lousy employer. Our chant said it all: “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Corporate greed has got to go!”
No comments:
Post a Comment