Secret Walmart memo leaked about Black Friday Strikes: "Where are all the customers!?"
At the end of last year, on Black Friday, Walmart workers bravely went out on strike. The workers and their supporters held protests at over 1,000 stores across the country, shortly following an initial set of strikes by workers in Walmart’s warehouses. The actions were broadly hailed as historic, given Walmart’s long-time practice of crushing the rights of workers at home and across the globe. Walmart, predictably, wasted no time denying the importance of the strikes and protests. On Black Friday, Walmart downplayed the strikes, falsely claiming that “…fewer than five workers walked off the job” and "less than fifty," in other sources.
Interestingly, recently leaked emails from Walmart executives tell another story about Walmart’s holiday season and sales following Black Friday. In the leaked emails, one executive asks, “Where are all the customers?” A look at Walmart’s fourth quarter sales reveals “anemic growth” in the market of the United States.
As result of these sales numbers, Walmart’s tune suddenly changed. “We didn’t finish quite as strong as we would have liked, primarily due to a little slower holiday season than we would have planned,” Walmart’s CFO told the New York Times. Of course, Walmart was prepared to blame the downturn on payroll taxes, but its self-reported Black Friday numbers appear more dubious than ever.