Walmart workers staged a two-hour sit-in—the first such protest to take place at the chain store, organizers say—and protested outside a Los Angeles–area store Thursday night; police arrested 23 participants for blocking an intersection and disrupting traffic after they moved into the street.
Walmart labor-management disputes have not been uncommon. Employees from 2,100 stores have signed onto the OUR Walmart campaign, which asks the company to institute a $15 minimum wage for its workers. From ThinkProgress:
In October, Walmart workers were arrested in New York and Washington DC during protests asking for a $15 an hour wage. During 2013’s Black Friday, there were around 1,500 protests and nine different strikes leading up to it. In June, the Quebec Supreme Court found that the company had violated labor laws by shutting down a store after its workers had unionized. There are currently no unionized Walmart workers in the United States, and workers have been threatened with a loss of benefits if they joined one.
The company’s labor relations issues haven’t deterred Usher, who has released his new single exclusively through download codes found in boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios sold in Walmart stores.
