March 2012

For nearly a year members of Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) have been trying unsuccessfully to get a meeting with Walmart CEO Mike Duke. Jobs with Justice chapters have been supporting associate demands by reaching out to Walmart board members in their communities ask them to intervene to secure a meeting. On March 22nd, actions in Washington, DC and New York City upped the pressure level on board members.

In Washington, DC members of the Respect DC coalition and Walmart associates who are part of the dropped by the Bethesda office of Marriott President Arne Sorenson. This was the coalition’s third visit to Sorenson, who also serves on the Walmart Board of Directors, asking him to urge Walmart CEO Mike Duke to meet with members of OUR Walmart. Since the two previous visits to deliver a letter had yielded no response from Sorenson, Respect DC decided to turn up the volume a bit in hopes of gaining his attention.

Today, a new web site launched exposing the 1$, or the .0001% behind Walmart.  Walmart1percent.org sheds light on the family and the company's political giving, their role in the race to the bottom in job quality, and other questionable associations.

According to the web site, "The Walton family is the richest family in the United States and one of the richest in the world. They are heirs to the Walmart fortune and the company’s largest shareholders, with a nearly-fifty percent ownership of stock in the retail giant."  and "In 2007, when the six Waltons on the Forbes list were worth $69.7 billion, their wealth was equal to the total wealth of the bottom 30% of American families.[3] When new data on American wealth is available next year, it will probably show an even wider gap between the Waltons and the rest of American families. The Waltons are worth $93 billion now, while most Americans still haven’t recovered from the recession."

Stay tuned to this new site as it is updated with the latest from the largest employer in the world, and the richest family in the United States.

From the Vermont Workers' Center, www.workerscenter.org

The United States Postal Service is preparing to cut nearly a quarter million jobs and shut down post offices all over the country. Hundreds of rural post offices and processing centers face closure on May 15th, when a six-month moratorium on consolidations expires, even though an advisory report by the Postal Regulatory Commission will not be finished until August.

Due to a predictable budget shortfall caused by the current U.S. Congress, the Post Master General has recommended cutting the number of delivery days, consolidating processing centers, ending next-day delivery of first-class mail, and downsizing one of the few institutions ordained by the US Constitution. Essentially, the USPS is being forced into a death spiral through service cuts, revenue drops, and bankruptcy-inducing budget requirements that may soon lead to the total collapse of the national postal service.

Instead of facing tens of thousands of protestors, the Obama Administration announced earlier today that it would move the G8 Summit from Chicago to Camp David in Frederick, Maryland—a couple hours outside of Washington, DC on May 18th and 19th.  G8 topics include health, law enforcement, labor, economic and social development, energy, environment, foreign affairs, justice and interior, terrorism, and trade.  Chicago organizations successfully scared the G8 out of town, but many around the country are still planning to protest the G8’s addiction to war and the global drive to extract maximum profits off the backs of the working people.

Jobs with Justice efforts to confront corporate power aims to shine a light on the negative roles unregulated corporate power has on our economy, and put a face on the 1%.  Whether in Chicago, at Camp David or anywhere else, these demonstrations will protest the role of the G8 in driving down the standard of living for workers everywhere.