Placerville Walmart targeted by Move-On, unrelated Unions, and a few disgruntled workers

A crowd estimated at about 100 labor union members, community activists, and Wal-Mart employees gathered outside the Placerville Wal-Mart for a couple of hours on Black Friday morning, part of a nationwide protest against what they describe as retaliation against workers' efforts to unionize.  Although the Placerville store was the site of the protest, the Wal-Mart "associates" who turned up reportedly work at stores throughout Sacramento.

"Wal-Mart comes into a community. They promise living wages and affordable health care," said Barbara Collins Andridge of Placerville, a Wal-Mart employee for seven years. She recently received a 40-cent raise to $12.05 an hour. 

"This is ridiculous," Stephanie Vasquez of Placerville shouted from the Walmart parking lot. "Do you know how long I've been looking for a job?"  Two years, she said, answering her own question. She vowed to apply to Wal-Mart for a job.

“The thing that I wonder about is how many of these people actually are employees,” customer Phil Abbott said. His curiosity was correct, not all protesters were Walmart employees. Outside union organizers were also on hand.  Aaron Park said, "If I had any doubts that WalMart is a great place to work - I have none now. Turns out that the "strike" was not really Wal Mart Employees, rather it was a moveon.org / Union effort where people were handed shirts to look like WalMart employees!"

CBS13 (Video)

“This is a made-for-TV publicity stunt, designed to mislead our customers and our associates,” said Amelia McLear, Walmart senior public affairs manager.

“We don’t want to come out and waste our time when it’s not calculated. We want to try and make the biggest impact,” said Carlo Tarantola, California School Employees Association.

However, customers, inside and out, still seemed to go about their business.  Tovar said Wal-Mart had its "best Black Friday ever" and the number of employees who missed their scheduled Black Friday shift was 60 percent lower than last year.

One local wrote:

If Walmart is "froth with employee civil rights violation" don't you think they would have no employees? What Walmart offers is jobs, which our state and country could use a lot more of right now. Oh the horrors of working in retail and being expected to work Black Friday! Yes! Lets put the unions in charge! They can fight for money no one has, create duplicative make work policies that would bankrupt any organization that was subject to those asinine rules, then strike to keep from reducing their pay when there is no money to pay everyone! Then everyone can lose their jobs! Yay! We didn't get our 27% pay cut. We all got a 100% pay cut! We win! Insane. Hostess cupcake anyone? How many more businesses will the unions, or in this case the entitled, kill before people wake up? Go occupy your job before you lose it. There are many waiting in line to take it.