It sure is nice to be able to write those words: Workers strike at Walmart!

Reports of striking Walmart workers have rolled out of four separate locations, from Florida to California, over the past couple of weeks.  Once, such bold collective initiative would have been unthinkable at the world’s largest retailer.

You may recall that, back in 2008, Walmart workers in the tire and lube department of a Walmart in Gatineau, Quebec, finally succeeded in unionizing in August only to see their department eliminated by Walmart two months later.  This has repeatedly been Walmart’s classic answer to organized labor.

In April 2005, a Walmart in Jonquiere, Quebec closed its doors in order to prevent the imposition of a union (UFCW) negotiated contract at the store.

As Wayne Hanley, former president of the UFCW tells it, the retail giant has, at every opportunity effectively sent this message to workers who might be tempted to organize:

‘If you join a union, they’re going to close your shop.’

Class action lawsuits by Walmart workers attempting to obtain relief for a laundry list of ill treatment, have become commonplace in the absence of union representation.

As recently as September of 2012 saw workers in Elwood, Ill. protesting retaliation against a group of workers who took their complaint about sub-minimal wages to court.

The lawsuit is the sixth filed by Elwood workers in three years. Three prior suits have resulted in settlement payments to workers. The latest claims that Roadlink Workforce Solutions–one of four subcontractors providing long-term “temporary” workers to Schneider Logistics, which operates the warehouse for Wal-Mart–frequently failed to pay overtime and minimum wage, in violation of federal, state and local laws.

Now it seems that some Walmart workers finally have had enough of big box bullying, and are taking organized steps to demand changes.

The strikes began with warehouse operators and workers protesting unsafe conditions, but quickly spread to stores all over California, under the umbrella of OUR Walmart, which is described as a “coalition of workers” rather than a recognized union.

Today, for the first time in Walmart’s fifty-year history, workers at multiple stores are out on strike. Minutes ago, dozens of workers at Southern California stores launched a one-day work stoppage in protest of alleged retaliation against their attempts to organize. In a few hours, they’ll join supporters for a mass rally outside a Pico Rivera, CA store. This is the latest – and most dramatic – of the recent escalations in the decades-long struggle between organized labor and the largest private employer in the world.

As St. Albans braces itself for location of the largest Walmart in Vermont, I take some comfort in the thought that, if and when this new store is built and occupied, it may well be in a new era of empowerment for Walmart workers.  

There are a fair number of folks here in Franklin County who, having been turned into activists by the threat of the proposed store, have become extremely well informed about Walmart’s labor practices and will gladly do whatever they can to promote the cause of organized labor at the new store.

It’s time to let Walmart know that we will be watching and waiting for the opportunity to push back at unfair labor practices, sound the alarm over anti-competitive behaviors and generally make the experiences that St. Albans has with Walmart known to the broader world of Walmart-watchers.

Walmart must make the St. Albans location the very model of good practices, bringing truth to every rosy promise that was uttered in support of the project; or be prepared for an epic public relations fail.