—ON THE PICKET LINE—

Maggie Trowe, Editor

 

Walmart workers protest store closure in Pico Rivera, Calif.

LOS ANGELES — More than 150 Walmart workers and supporters marched and rallied in front of Walmart’s Pico Rivera supercenter April 20, accusing the giant retailer of retaliating against labor organizing by abruptly closing that and other stores.

A week earlier Walmart shut down five stores — the one in Pico Rivera and four others in Florida, Oklahoma and Texas — citing “plumbing issues.” Pico Rivera City Manager René Bobadilla said that the city had not received any permit requests to do such work. The stores were all closed with no advance warning.

OUR Walmart is a nationwide organization of Walmart workers fighting for $15 an hour, full-time hours and an end to retaliatory disciplinary measures and firings.

Pico Rivera workers were told they could apply for positions at other area stores, with no guarantee of being hired or maintaining their job and pay level, and that when the Pico Rivera store reopened, they would have to reapply.

The store closings have left 2,200 workers unemployed, including 530 in Pico Rivera.

“We know Walmart is scared of all we have accomplished as members of OUR Walmart so they’re targeting us. Through OUR Walmart, we’re going to keep fighting back until the company gives us our jobs back,” said Luna, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers website.

Workers at the Pico Rivera store held a strike in October 2012 and the first large sit-down strike, the website reports.

Pico Rivera OUR Walmart members filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board April 20 demanding Walmart be ordered to rehire the workers terminated in all five stores and reinstate them to the stores where they were employed or transfer them without loss of pay until they can be reinstated at the stores where they worked.

Workers are planning another rally May 28 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the corner of Broadway and Cesar Chavez.

—Danielle London

San Francisco rally: ‘Reinstate fired Walmart workers!’

SAN FRANCISCO — “Plumbing problems ain’t legit, Walmart is full of it!” chanted more than 50 workers from the retail giant and supporters. They were picketing in front of the Fairmont Hotel here April 30 demanding that Walmart reinstate the 2,200 workers who lost their jobs at the Pico Rivera store near Los Angeles and at four others in Texas, Oklahoma and Florida when Walmart bosses shut them down in April.

The target of the protest was Aida Alvarez, a member of Walmart’s board of directors, who was attending the Latino Community Foundation Gala at the Fairmont. Carrying toilet plungers, members of OUR Walmart chanted, “Stand with our community. Tell Walmart to reinstate the fired workers!”

“We were given five hours notice,” Silvia Anguiano, one of the 530 workers fired at the Pico Rivera store, told the Militant. “It was a huge surprise, very frustrating. Plumbing problems? No!”

Eduardo, a worker at a Walmart store in the East Bay, told the Militant that he had traveled with other Walmart workers to the Pico Rivera store last fall to support a sit-down action demanding $15 an hour and full-time work.

— Joel Britton

Workers fight for safety after fire in Greek refinery

ATHENS, Greece — A fire broke out May 8 at the Ellinika Petrelaia (ELPE) oil refinery in nearby Aspropyrgos following an explosion of an old unit during maintenance. Six workers were seriously injured.

Workers who were present say the fire alarm never sounded and there was no adequate evacuation plan. Employees were then grouped together in one of the parking lots and told not to leave. When some tried to exit, company security personnel chased them down and took away their IDs.

In previous years maintenance shutdowns took more than 45 days, but the company wanted it finished in a month this time, said contract worker Nasos Pavlakis in a phone interview.

The permanent workforce at ELPE has been reduced from 2,700 in 2003 to 1,600 today. There are some 700 contract workers, hired for a month and paid six or less euros per hour ($7). “People frequently work 12 to 16 hours a day with no days off,” said Pavlakis.

After the fire some of the contract workers called in representatives of the Attica Metalworkers and Shipbuilding Industry union and the Energy Sector union, who organized a general assembly May 9 and a three-day strike.

The general assembly demanded that the company pay for all medical expenses of the injured workers, give compensation to the families, reduce overtime and increase wages for contract workers. According to a statement by the metal workers union, ELPE agreed to some of the workers’ demands.

—Sofia Roditi and Natasha Terlexi