NEW YORK -- On Friday afternoon in Zuccotti Park, Sandy Carpenter, a former Walmart 'associate,' held a brief teach-in about her former employer -- "the face of the 1 percent," she told the crowd, eliciting cheers and enthusiastic hand gestures. Carpenter is a member of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, a growing group of current and former associates -- the company's term for its employees -- seeking to improve conditions at the world's largest employer. On Friday, she sought to spread word about the group's mission to Occupy Wall Street and to ask for help.
Earlier Friday, Carptenter told the crowd, Sam Walton's daughter Alice opened a new art museum in Bentonville, Ark., where Walmart's corporate headquarters is located. The museum received an $800 million endowment from the Walton Family Foundation and a $20 million grant from Walmart. Meanwhile, Walmart recently announced significant cuts to health benefits for its employees.
While the retailer's U.S. profits have slumped in recent years, the company recently announced that domestic same-store sales have picked up. Walmart blames the cuts in health coverage on rising U.S. health care costs, but the United Food and Commercial Workers union -- and OUR Walmart members -- charge that they should be increasing employee compensation, not cutting it.
"I'm asking you all to reach out to the corporate people at Walmart and ask them to sit down with their associates," Carptenter said, and the group of roughly 40 protesters and onlookers, acting as the "people's mic," repeated her words. "Let them know that change starts at Walmart!" Members of the crowd shouted "right on" and began to disperse.
"That was great," said Ricardo Hinkel, a union member with AFSCME who came down to Zuccotti to give away a couple of winter jackets. "Actually, it's infuriating. That Walmart has so much money and they make their associates go on public assistance to get health care or food -- that's what this is all about," he said, gesturing at the hundreds of protesters milling about in the park.
Carptenter nodded briskly and swung her arms, trying to stay warm. She said she was excited to be at Occupy Wall Street, which she had been anticipating visiting for weeks, but she wasn't prepared for the plunging temperature. As she wound up her talk, the sun had sunk behind the skyscrapers and she wore no jacket, just five shirts layered on top of each other.
Carpenter is employed by the UFCW -- the driving force behind OUR Walmart -- and she was excited to be around a crowd so openly discussing change. Walmart is an anti-union company, Carpenter said, and even though OUR Walmart is not a union, most employees are too scared that they'll lose their jobs to speak openly with her. Her everyday work, trying to reach out to Walmart employees and encourage them to join the organization, is mostly conducted in whispers or behind closed doors.
"It's amazing. Here, people are so willing to come out," she said. "Walmart instills such fear in people. They really believe that someone is down the street watching their house. Here, it's different."
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Source: Huff
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