March, Rally Inspire but Lack a Clear Call to Action
by MARK GABRISH
CONLAN
Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
“Wal-Muerte”
“We Are One”
“OUR Walmart”
“Respect Work”
Lynn Gonzalez
Tefere Gebre
Juan Vargas
Ben Hueso
.A.jpg)
Christian Ramirez
(right)
Protesters in front
of Walmart construction site
Numbers to call to demand a community benefits agreement from Walmart:
Aaron Rios, (559) 274-8461; Pedro Anaya, (858) 541-7800 x121
“I want to thank
you for coming to my neighborhood, right down the street here,” said Lorena
Gonzalez, head of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Central Labor Council, to
nearly 1,000 people gathered in Golden Hill Park on Saturday morning, September
22, for a march and rally to protest the Walmart currently under construction
in San Diego’s largely Latino Sherman Heights district. “A couple of months
ago, when my neighbors and I found that Walmart planned to occupy an historic
building in our neighborhood without ever talking to the community, we were a
little pissed off, right?”
Gonzalez’ speech
kicked off a four-hour event that consisted of an opening rally in the park, a
march to Sherman Heights, and a second rally across the street from the
Walmart, which is currently under construction on the site of the old San Diego
Farmers’ Market. The Sherman Heights community members seemed most upset at the
destruction of this historical site — though Walmart is actually keeping the
old building’s central tower in place and is using red brick in their new
construction to give their store an “historic” veneer — and the likelihood that
competition from Walmart will drive existing neighborhood stores out of
business.
But Gonzalez’
speech focused more on the general labor case against Walmart, not only their
determination to keep unions out but their treatment of their workers and the
U.S. economy in general. “Walmart has taken over 200,000 American jobs to
China, and made 200,000 American workers lose their jobs,” she said. “Even
Right-wing people who think it’s O.K. for Walmart to take jobs to China don’t think it’s O.K. for Walmart to make us pay them over
$1.2 billion in tax credits for shipping our jobs overseas.”
The overall
event was spirited and committed, but it lacked one important thing: a clear
demand for action. Labor officials are governed by the National Labor Relations
Act (NLRA), which makes it illegal for a union to call for a so-called
“secondary boycott” — meaning that the unions involved in the anti-Walmart
campaign can’t tell people not to shop at Walmart. Gonzalez and many of the
other speakers focused on lobbying Walmart to sign a so-called “community
benefit agreement” with neighborhood organizations in Sherman Heights that
would commit them, among other things, to give preference to Sherman Heights residents
when they hire for the new store. But Walmart has refused to sign such an
agreement or to meet with the neighborhood groups.
The morning
rally focused mostly on labor leaders and elected officials, including State
Senator Juan Vargas and State Assemblymember Ben Hueso. Last year Vargas
carried a bill that would have required “economic impact statements,” similar
to the environmental impact reviews California has required on new developments
since the 1970’s, in case Walmart or any other retailer wanted to open a store
above a certain size in a community. But the bill, which passed the state
legislature, was vetoed by Jerry Brown. Hueso has tried to come to the
community’s aid by starting a state audit of the permitting process by which
Walmart was authorized to build on the historic site. The purpose is to see if
San Diego broke its own laws and regulations by fast-tracking Walmart’s permit.
“The Republicans
say 47 percent of us don’t matter,” said Vargas — referring to Republican
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s remarks to a private audience in Boca
Raton, Florida last May to the effect that 47 percent of Americans are on the
government dole, don’t believe in taking responsibility for their well-being
and therefore won’t vote for him. “The Walmart heirs own more stuff than 42
percent of all Americans. They have more wealth than almost half of the U.S.
and they made it from ear infections. I can take my daughter to the hospital
when she has an ear infection because we have health insurance. The Walmart
worker’s daughter can’t go because they don’t have health insurance. Walmart
made their money on the backs of their workers, by breaking the people who work
for them.”
“It’s really a
pleasure to see people wake up,” said Hueso. “The middle class is disappearing.
The American dream is disappearing and we have to fight to keep the middle
class vibrant. Rarely do we talk about the impacts of Walmart on the community.
They eliminate 2.8 million jobs for every 2 million jobs they create. The
average Walmart worker makes $8.80 an hour. … Do we ever talk about the cost to
affordable housing and health care because they don’t pay a living wage?” Hueso
also talked about the recent scandal involving Walmart in Mexico, where they
admitted bribing government officials to obtain a building permit in three
years — and compared that to the Sherman Heights store, which was authorized by
San Diego in just six months.
“This isn’t just
about unions, or quality of life, or saving the middle class,” Hueso said.
“This is about what we are as a society. We’re dealing with a company that
doesn’t play by the rules, that doesn’t allow their workers to be in unions. We
need to make the community aware of the importance of justice and the law.”
Besides
Gonzalez, other labor leaders who spoke included her opposite numbers in Los
Angeles and Orange Counties, Maria Elena Durazo and Tefere Gebre. Another union
leader who spoke at the event was Mickey Kasparian, head of the United Food and
Commercial Workers Local 135 in San Diego. His union is in Walmart’s
cross-hairs because the success of their non-union “big-box” stores, which sell
cheap groceries as well as non-food items, directly threatens the existence of
the big supermarket chains like Ralph’s, Vons and Albertson’s, where most of
Local 135’s members work.
“We talk a lot
about Walmart, but we really should be talking about the community, about
workers, about respect,” Kasparian said. “The Walmart workers here deserve a
huge round of applause. They want to earn a decent wage with affordable health
care, and Walmart tries to take away their wages, benefits and holidays. But
they can’t take away their souls and their respect.”
Walmart
“Associates” Speak
The Walmart
workers Kasparian was talking about were the members of “Organization United
for Respect at Walmart,” or “OUR Walmart” for short. They are Walmart employees
— or “associates,” a term Walmart coined for its employees to encourage them to
feel solidarity with their employers rather than each other, which many other
employers have since adopted — who have put their jobs on the line both by
speaking publicly about them and organizing an unofficial labor group. OUR
Walmart members delivered powerful testimonials about what life is like as a
Walmart worker and how Walmart exploits them to keep costs down.
“I’m a warehouse
worker [at Walmart in Los Angeles] and it pays $8 an hour,” said a man
identified only as Alejandro. “”I am homeless. I don’t have enough money for
food. We work with broken equipment. They won’t fix it. We work in unhealthy
conditions. It’s 120° in the warehouse and they give us dirty water that isn’t
purified. We decided to go on strike because we wanted to make a change. We
marched from Irving Park to downtown L.A. , 50 miles, and now we want you to
help us fight Walmart.”
“I work in
Mountain Park but I live in Fontana, in the Inland Empire, and I drive a Ford
Explorer,” said Angie Rodriguez, another Walmart worker. “It takes all my
salary just to go to work. … They called me twice last night and asked me to
come to San Diego. I hesitated the first time because I baby-sit two
grandchildren and I had to ask my daughter’s permission. Eight years ago they
started a store like this in my town. They promised us good jobs and hired us
full-time. Now we’re only 20 percent full-time and 80 percent part-time, and
they’re trying to replace all of us full-timers with part-timers because that
way they can get two for the price of one.”
Rodriguez
savagely lampooned Walmart’s strategy of calling its workers “associates.” “In
a law firm, the ‘associates’ benefit from the profits of the firm,” she
explained. “We do not benefit from the profits of Walmart.”
While the
morning rally had emphasized elected officials and union leaders, the afternoon
speakers’ list was mostly Walmart workers and neighborhood organizers. “We have
fought long and hard to show that our community has as much dignity as any
other,” said community activist and former City Council candidate Christian
Ramirez. “We met with Walmart and they promised a lot of things, but they
refused to sign a community benefits agreement. They gave us their word that
they would respect the historic character of the building. Look behind you —
does that look like they’re respecting
the historic character of the building?”
One elected
official who did speak at the afternoon
rally was Richard Barrera, member of the San Diego Unified School District
board of education. “I see this as a big sign of support and unity for our kids
who go to school in this neighborhood,” Barrera said. “In this neighborhood, we
want partners that understand that if our families have decent jobs and health
care, our kids have a shot at getting a real education. When we do a
partnership together, we want patrons who create real jobs for our families. We entered into the first
Project-Labor Agreement (PLA) of any school district in southern California and
hired from this community so the people building our schools can provide for
their families and have a real shot at getting ahead.”
Barrera called
on community activists to keep the pressure on Walmart and make the Sherman
Heights store the first unionized Walmart in the U.S. Ramirez targeted
Walmart’s community representative, Pedro Anaya — ironically, an old friend of
his — and asked people at the rally to call Anaya at (858) 541-7800, extension
121, to demand that Walmart sign a community benefit agreement with the people
of Sherman Heights. But with the Walmart already largely built, neighborhood
stores either closing or laying off workers even before Walmart opens, and the
lack of a coherent anti-Walmart demand from the rally’s organizers, it was
unclear what the various groups involved in the anti-Walmart campaign could do
either to stop the store from opening or to get it to hire locally and give its
employees good pay and decent working conditions.
