How the Walmart Labor Struggle Is Going Global
Toronto – January 24, 2013 – “Workers of the world unite!” says the traditional slogan of the Industrial Workers of the World. The Wobblies, since their founding in 1905, have envisioned a global union capable of waging a worldwide general strike. By its height in the 1920s, the union was capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of workers. But while the Wobblies never fully realized international unity among workers, there is new promise for its vision today — thanks not to a union, but to a union-busting corporation: Walmart.
What started as a warehouse workers’ strike in California late last year has grown into a global struggle against the world’s largest private employer. The 2.1 million Walmart workers constitute the third-largest workforce in the world, following the U.S. Department of Defense and the People’s Liberation Army of China. And they are revolting.
Over 1,000 workers in Walmarts throughout Argentina went on strike on December 21, in solidarity with OUR Walmart workers in the United States, reported Josh Eidelson for The Nation. Those strikes, in turn, built on a December 14 global day of action when workers from Walmart stores in 10 different countries took to the streets in marches, rallies and protests against Walmart’s attempts to silence outspoken workers. Small cadres of workers from Uruguay, India, South Africa and the United Kingdom delivered letters to their countries’ respective corporate offices demanding an end to worker repression. The Chilean Walmart workers union expressed full solidarity with their North American counterparts and the Chilean government has already, for the next two years, banned the Walmart subsidiary Lider from bidding on government contracts due to its anti-union posturing — bad-faith bargaining, unfair firings and harassment of workers. Elsewhere in the world, Walmart workers actually tend to be unionized at a much higher rate than U.S. workers, and UNI Global Union Alliance has served as a clearinghouse for the international protests by trade unionists in support of the North American efforts.
