Finally, more retailers are being thankful for their employees

The good news is that it seems more and more retailers are getting the message that workers should be able to spend Thanksgiving Day with their families, not toiling away at work.

The bad news? Some companies still aren't complying and probably never will. Paging Walmart ...

Anyway, employees of Costco, T.J. Maxx, Nordstrom, Crate and Barrel, American Girl, Burlington Coat Factory, The Home Depot, Marshalls and Staples won't have to be on the job next Thursday. REI, meanwhile, is doing one better -- closing Thanksgiving Day as well as Friday. They're even paying their workers too!

Walmart still refuses to close on Thanksgiving.

But that good cheer is not being extended to employees of Walmart, Target, Macy's, Best Buy, Toys R Us, Kmart or Kohl's. They still are putting financial gains above time with family. Or so they think.

The real kick in the pants is that opening for a few hours on Thanksgiving does not even yield more profits for companies. They're just taking in funds that they would have earned eventually during the holiday shopping season anyway. So thousands of workers give up their holiday for nothing.

As The Street noted:

Labor groups have pushed back on big chains forcing employees to come in for the holiday, while consumer groups have called for shoppers to boycott going out on Thanksgiving 

And stores have started to answer -- though likely more because the strategy of opening on Thanksgiving doesn't add to the bottom line, rather than for workers' morale. Indeed, retailers are finding that being open on Thanksgiving isn't necessarily boosting holiday sales, but rather that Thursday's sales are simply coming at the expense of those on Black Friday.

Whatever the reason, it's the right call. It's time for others to do the same.

Please help Walmart workers disciplined for striking against the company

The OUR Walmart campaign held demonstrations across the country last week calling on Walmart managers to reverse disciplinary actions against 35 workers.

The workers in nine different states participated in Black Friday protests against the retail giant.

Walmart managers have been illegally spying on, disciplining and even firing workers who spoke out.

Despite Walmart’s publicly stated anti-retaliation policy, the company lets the managers get away with targeting workers who exercise their rights.

Mother Jones reported on what happened to one of the Walmart workers, 26-year-old Kiana Howard of Sacramento, Calif.

I didn't graduate from high school because I couldn't pass the math part of the exit exam. I did go back in 2013 and get my diploma. I was screaming and crying. I was so happy. 

About a week later, I started working at the local Walmart. I love working around people and having conversations while ringing them up. You could be having a bad day and one customer in line says a joke and changes your whole day. My coworkers there were like family. We took care of each other because we were all going through the same situation. The managers, on the other hand, they don't give a damn about us. 

I started off at $8.40 an hour. Then California raised the minimum wage, and I got my yearly raise, which put me up to $9.80. But the most hours I could get in any week after picking up extra days and taking extra shifts was 36. After paying rent and utilities, I was barely scraping by. I was on welfare, getting $300. When they cut that off, I really started struggling. And then they cut my food stamps down by more than half, to $136, so I started having to spend money on food. I went to food banks to make sure I fed my seven-year-old son. 

I live an hour away. I don't have a car. I have to catch the bus and the light rail every day. My schedule was all over the place. Some days I would have to be at work at 5:30 in the morning, and then some days I would work from 8 p.m. to midnight. I was tired all the time. It was just madness. Especially because there's no buses that run after 10 p.m...
I missed three days because my son was sick, and I was late three days. They hold that against us for a whole year... 

Around August of last year, I'd had enough and put in an availability change with my supervisor. I told them I could only work between 5:30 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. That way I could get home to my son. People who had worked there for years told me, "Oh, they are going to cut your hours back for a while, and then you will get them back again." But they cut my hours back—to just 23 a week—and they kept them cut back. It went on for a good month or two. That's one reason I decided to join Our Walmart... 

On Black Friday we went on strike. The organizers picked us up in a white van and drove us to a picket at the Rancho Cordova store. It was me and a couple of other Our Walmart people. They had balloons; they tied them on our wrists. They had posters. And we stood out there for a minute, we talked, and we had people get on the mic and speak. We had a DJ out there. It was like a little party. I did an interview on the news... 

They retaliated on January 13, which was the day I got fired. I had a four-hour shift. Thirty minutes before I was about to get off, they pulled me off the register and brought me in the office. It was like, "You went on strike for Black Friday…" I wasn't listening because I was upset. She said it counted as my fourth unexcused absence and that rolls over into me being terminated. I signed my papers and I gave her my badge and my vest and I left.

You can help support the workers who were fired and disciplined for fighting back. Sign the worker petition telling Walmart US Labor Relations Manager Vice President Vicky Dawson to uphold Walmart’s policy and immediately discipline or fire these managers that have been involved in trying to illegally silence workers. (Click here to sign the petition.)

Today's Teamster News 11.30.14

Trade
“Arrogant” UK public didn’t “buy in” enough secret expertise to understand TTIP? (opinion)  beliefnet   ...Given the concerns about the privatisation of the NHS that have been raised by activists, I, like many other members of the public, believe the deal is far too important to be based on closed-doors decisions...
War on Workers
Child poverty in the U.S. is among the worst in the developed world  Washington Post   ...Nearly one third of U.S. children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income in 2008 - about $31,000 annually...
'Being homeless is better than working for Amazon'  Guardian   ... ISS is the temp agency that provides warehouse labor for Amazon and they are at the center of the SCOTUS case Integrity Staffing Solutions vs. Busk. ISS could simply deactivate a worker’s badge and they would suddenly be out of work. They treated us like beggars because we needed their jobs...
Working for Walmart Is Even Worse Than You Think  Alternet   ...A lot of people were doing the work of three to four people...
Walmart Workers Rally For Higher Wages At Stores Across The Country  ThinkProgress   ...As Americans rushed to take advantage of jaw dropping deals this Black Friday, thousands of Walmart employees and labor union members protested at 1,000 stores across the country for higher wages and consistent full-time work. At least 11 Walmart workers and supporters were arrested for blocking traffic outside a Walmart in Chicago...
Uber faces a class action lawsuit over use of credit reports during background checks  Pando Daily   ...Uber’s legal problems are piling up. The company is fighting for regulatory clearance to operate in numerous jurisdictions, including, most recently, Nevada. At the same time, it’s being sued by the National Federation of the Blind for discrimination against blind people and service dogs. Another lawsuit accuses the company of charging bogus surcharges and tolls to passengers traveling to and from Boston’s Logan Airport...
Miscellaneous
Just Plane Ugly (opinion)  New York Times   ...Immediately following news coverage of a flight that had to be diverted when two passengers scuffled over a Knee Defender’s use, sales of the device reportedly increased...
Inside OPEC room, Naimi declares price war on U.S. shale oil  Reuters   ...Saudi Arabia's oil minister told fellow OPEC members they must combat the U.S. shale oil boom, arguing against cutting crude output in order to depress prices and undermine the profitability of North American producers...
Black Friday Online Sales Up 8.5% Over Last Year, 20% Of Sales Came From iOS  techcrunch   ...Amazon was up 25.9% year-over-year, outpacing e-commerce as a whole, but eBay grew just 3.0% over Thanksgiving Day 2013...
Despair: More People Shopped on Black Friday than Voted in Midterms  Mediaite   ...The number of Black Friday participants comes from the National Retail Federation, which predicted 140.1 million would go shopping this weekend — a slight dip from the 140.3 million who went out last year. According to data collected by the United States Election Project, only 76.9 million people turned out to vote in the 2014 midterm elections — the lowest turnout since World War II, when the population of America was less than 150 million people...