NEWS & LETTERS, December 2009
Wal-Mart fake smiles
Where would unions be today if they failed to organize GM with the great sit-down strikes in the 1930s? We as workers must begin to ask, why haven't the big unions taken on Wal-Mart? We the workers should be in direct action with the unorganized and show them how to sit down. If the union leadership has lost the will to organize, then the unions are on the road to death.
Workers themselves must stop the money from flowing throughout all Wal-Marts by just not working. Our work is the only real power we the workers have. We must take back our real value, which is labor itself.
At my local Wal-Mart store a young Black woman cleaning the restrooms had a big smile on her face. My first thought was, she must be really happy. I asked her, "How do you like working here?" She said, "I hate it here. Why do you ask me something like that?" She began looking to see who was around "We all hate our jobs here. I can get fired for talking like this."
I told her, "I have had a lot of jobs that I learned to hate too!" Then she really began to talk. "They don't want us to talk with people. Around here, it's keep a damn smile on your face and do your job. A person that doesn't smile they will find a reason to let go. They even make us sing their damn Wal-Mart song every day!"
On her break outside, I asked her, "Do you think a union will help?" "Hell no," she said, "All they will do is take more money out of my check. The union was okay for my grandpa, he was in the Steelworkers Union for all of his life. Everybody else I know that was in a union has lost their job one way or another."
The young workers I have talked with know that their dreams will never happen within this worldwide capitalist system. When the workers themselves take back their labor at the point of production, then and only then, will we see a system set up by us, the workers. Then we will really smile, for we will be free.
--Martin
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