Vol. 79/No. 35      October 5, 2015

“I sent a check for $41.28 today, blood money from Walmart called ‘My Share.’ The fact that we got this ‘bonus’ two weeks after our hours were cut was not lost on my co-workers,” wrote Jacquie Henderson from Omaha, Nebraska, in a note to the Socialist Workers Party Capital Fund.

Communist workers use the term blood money to describe bonuses and other bribes from the bosses that are designed to get us to accept speedup, lower wages, grueling hours, concession contracts and dangerous working conditions.

Henderson found some real interest when she said she would donate the money to build the communist movement. “When they started this they gave us a steak for dinner,” one co-worker with almost a decade in the store told her. “Now it’s a cake and we don’t even stop working. But it’s all the same.”

Several other Walmart workers have contributed their “My Share” recently. One reported that the bonus is based on an unknown aggregate of the store’s profits, the number of hours worked and then reduced with reported injuries.

“They say sometimes it can be a week’s pay!” she wrote. “And the managers halt their commands for a lunch period, put on a smile as they throw a celebration and serve the workers a free lunch. I declined to participate.”

Blood money donations are a political cornerstone of the Capital Fund, which finances long-range work of the party. To make a contribution, contact party organizations listed on page 8.

— EMMA JOHNSON