walmart black friday complaints

"It's heartbreaking to miss the holiday with them, and it's just one more way that Wal-Mart is showing its disregard for our families," Fletcher said in a statement. "But when our co-workers speak out about problems like these, Wal-Mart turns their schedules upside down, cuts their hours and even fires people. We're going on strike for an end to Wal-Mart's attempts to silence its workers."

Charlene Fletcher, who works with her husband, William, at a Wal-Mart in Duarte, Calif., became enraged when she learned that both were scheduled to work on Thanksgiving, missing the holiday with their children, ages 2 and 5.

In October, a strike at a Wal-Mart store in Los Angeles spread to stores in 12 other cities, with local and national leaders holding protests at more than 200 stores for better pay, fairer schedules and more affordable health care. Since that time, workers have since walked off the job in Dallas and Richmond, Calif., and other upcoming strikes and protests are expected at stores in Chicago, Miami, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C.

"Wal-Mart is doing everything in its power to attempt to silence our voice," said Colby Harris, who works at a Wal-Mart store in Lancaster, Texas. "But nothing — not even this baseless unfair labor practice charge — will stop us from speaking out."

Wal-Mart employees began walking off the job last week week ahead of Black Friday, when three union-backed groups expect thousands of protests nationwide.

Wal-Mart workers protesting their employer complain of low wages, poor working conditions and inadequate health benefits, among other grievances. "Making Change," devoted to the protests, had more than 29,000 followers as of Monday afternoon. 

"This is a complicated case," Cleeland told The Associated Press, adding that if the labor board decides Wal-Mart's complaint has merit, the matter would then go to district court.

The agency, she said, just decided two main issues: whether workers are picketing and if so, whether the picketing intended to unionize workers.

NLRB spokeswoman Nancy Cleeland said federal officials will decide quickly whether the complaint has merit and noted that, by statute, the agency must make a charge of illegal picketing a priority before all other cases.

"We are taking this action now because we cannot allow the UFCW to continue to intentionally seek to create an environment that could directly and adversely impact our customers and associates," Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said in a statement obtained by Reuters. "If they do, they will be held accountable."

The retail giant, which has roughly 1.3 million U.S. workers, is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for an injunction against the rallies and pickets — even flash mobs — that have sprung up at stores nationwide, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

The company filed a complaint on Friday against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, claiming the labor union — one of the nation's largest — has unlawfully disrupted business by staging protests at Wal-Mart's stores and warehouses around the country over the past six months.

Wal-Mart is taking legal action against its organized labor opponents, filing an unfair labor practice charge over widespread protests at its stores across the country — as well as rallies planned for Black Friday, considered the biggest shopping day of the year.

Nov. 13, 2012: A worker pulls a line of shopping carts toward a Walmart store in North Kingstown, R.I. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported a 9 percent increase in net income for the third quarter, but revenue for the world's largest retailer fell below Wall Street forecasts as its low-income shoppers continue to grapple with an uncertain economy.

Published November 20, 2012FoxNews.com

Wal-Mart files legal complaint against growing protests ahead of Black Friday

Wal-Mart files legal complaint against growing protests ahead of Black Friday | Fox News